The contrast between the two Alpine drivers at the British Grand Prix weekend became extremely harsh yet again in qualifying at Silverstone as the fortunes of Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto drastically diverged.
Alpine’s prospects looked dire by Saturday afternoon and a double Q1 exit was on the cards. However, Colapinto was piecing together a more convincing weekend. He was closer to Pierre Gasly in FP1 and FP2 - although for the fifth round running he was the slowest driver to set a time - and was then quicker than Gasly in FP3.
Colapinto then outpaced Gasly on their first Q1 runs. While Gasly was struggling a lot with the car, which has been tricky to drive and had its usual engine deficit painfully exposed here, Colapinto was handling the situation better and looking to replicate his Canada performance where he took advantage of a Gasly error to outqualify his team-mate.
But then Colapinto spun needlessly at the end of his second push lap on his first set of softs, gently hit the barrier, and had to stop soon after getting back onto the circuit - ending his Q1 early.
Here's the moment Colapinto went off 🎥#F1 #BritishGP pic.twitter.com/SZRKRBPhJ2
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 5, 2025
The spin was a result of getting too wide exiting the final complex of corners, and then not backing out as he ran over the aggressive exit kerb. It was perhaps made worse by a very light sprinkling of rain, but still avoidable. Team boss Flavio Briatore simply said: “He knows he made a mistake and needs to improve and come back strongly in the race tomorrow.”
While a regrettable error, it would have been easier for driver and team to shrug it off had the expected double Q1 exit come to pass. There is less to lament if 17th or 18th has turned into 20th. And Colapinto’s immediate comments while qualifying was still going on reflected that.
“We are still struggling a lot with the car,” he said. “We have to improve a bit.
“It was not the ideal quali from my side. We found a lot of things this weekend that I think will make me feel a bit better with the car.
“Closer to Pierre, but of course, we are still far [away] so we need to do a couple of steps for the next few races.”
But as Gasly slipped through to Q2 in 15th, it put a painful emphasis on Colapinto’s underachievement - and when Gasly shocked everybody, including himself, with a magic final Q2 lap to make into Q3, Colapinto took an even bigger blow.
His results are testing Alpine’s patience. There are plenty of caveats that should be applied when judging Colapinto - he didn’t get a pre-season, this car isn’t great and is tricky to drive, and Briatore has put him in a pressured situation - but he is struggling. His results are not an improvement on Jack Doohan’s and Briatore is not satisfied with what he’s seen.
Silverstone qualifying only continues the trend, which is very unfortunate for Colapinto given it could have been a moment that started to swing things more towards him. Who knows how he may have progressed in Q1. It seems doubtful he’d have replicated Gasly’s Q2 magic but it could have been him not Gasly sneaking into Q2, and he missed the chance to close out a gently encouraging Saturday.
There is an underlying pressure in this situation, with Briatore known to be weighing up the merits of yet another driver change and having enquired about Valtteri Bottas’s availability. Which is probably why Colapinto had to field an aggressive question about whether there was a sense he could get dropped for the next race.
“I'm not very concerned of course, there is always talks and rumours,” said Colapinto.
“I just need to keep working and trying to help the team to improve the car. Today was not ideal. We made some good steps but definitely not what we want.”
Given Alpine’s established issues in races, Colapinto will need a little help to rescue his weekend in the grand prix. Likewise, if things play out as they did in Austria, where Alpine’s race pace and tyre management were awful, Gasly will struggle to convert his Saturday into points.
So the end result might still be the same for both drivers. But the way they are being achieved means Briatore’s not at all convinced that, if the car is better or capable of scoring points, both cars will be in the mix when it counts.
That is something Colapino needs to change, but the difficulty of the Alpine and the situation he has been put in means he needs more time than he hoped. The question is whether he will get it - especially with a two-week break now looming before the next race at Spa.
Alpine has announced the exit of its team principal two years in a row during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, which has by coincidence ended up synonymous with elements of chaos around the Renault team.
With Briatore unconvinced and the team not really able to afford this experiment, more drama cannot be ruled out - even if Colapinto, like Doohan before him, really deserves more time.
