With Alpine undecided on who should partner Pierre Gasly at the Formula 1 team next season, Paul Aron's Italian Grand Prix practice appearance was a timely audition.
Aron, an Alpine test and reserve driver, is a contender for a race seat next year should the team not continue longer-term with Franco Colapinto - who replaced Jack Doohan from round seven of the current season.
All three young drivers are still in the frame and can make different cases for inclusion. Aron is arguably the most interesting simply for being the one that least is known about.
That's despite Aron testing for Alpine in Abu Dhabi last year and taking part in two Friday practice sessions this season for Sauber - a slightly unusual arrangement, but a mutually beneficial one as it satisfied Sauber's Friday young driver requirements and gave Aron more track time.
Finally, though, Aron has participated in FP1 for his actual employer. He'll do so at least twice more before the end of the season, and these add up to probably his best chance to stake his claim for a race seat beyond relying on Alpine not having faith in either Colapinto or Doohan.
He made a good, if not completely compelling, initial case at Monza. The downsides were very prominent: half a second slower than regular driver Pierre Gasly, and a spin in the middle of the session.
But some necessary context immediately eases that. Half a second is not at all out of kilter with the bulk of Colapinto's FP1 work this season, for starters, and for a stand-in driver is perfectly reasonable. For reference, Alex Dunne, who was mega-impressive when he made his FP1 debut in Austria and basically matched Oscar Piastri's laptime at McLaren, was six tenths off Lando Norris in the corresponding Monza session.
Aron dips a wheel on the grass at the second chicane and goes spinning, but he's on his way again without any damage done 👍#F1 #ItalianGP pic.twitter.com/lfLoSjzh4o
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 5, 2025
As for the spin - well, it was careless, certainly, and Aron is lucky that he did not pay a bigger price. This was not a particularly small misjudgement given how much of the right-side wheels were on the dirt on the outside of Monza's second chicane! But it probably just about falls into 'no harm, no foul' territory.
That spin came on his final lap on mediums in the first half of the session, which had been a really strong start. He’d been two tenths slower than Gasly on the first run, a tenth quicker on the second, and 0.25s slower again on the third. This strong start was noticed within Alpine, and understood to be where Aron impressed most.
Whether that dented his confidence a little, and explains the gap ballooning on softs, only Aron will know. But he could have been closer in the final runs. Aron caught a notable slide into Ascari, which cost him time, and he was then a bit conservative into Parabolica too. He had been very sensitive to the rears sliding earlier in the session, and reduced his entry and minimum speed in the final corner to compensate, so a repeat would make sense.
The point is while this was not a head-turning performance like Dunne's in Austria - especially as Aron's rapid acclimatisation can be put down to the fact this was not his FP1 debut - it was a pretty solid session, one in which he didn't look out of place. That is usually a decent starting point, as is the way Aron was communicating with the team.
Aron's strong feedback over the radio is almost certainly a legacy of the fact he has driven in FP1s already, and tested with Alpine a lot. He was quite in tune with the rhythm of the session, happy to make his own adjustments on the steering wheel, and being very clear with his feeling in the car.
Generally, his judgement of how much information to impart and when was sensible, although at least once he was guilty of oversharing while navigating the usual FP1 mess of traffic.
When Aron gets back in this car again, he will need to get closer to Gasly to make a convincing case for a promotion. Especially as Colapinto is improving, and showing flashes of his best from his Williams cameo last year. If that continues then Alpine might not have a decision to make.
But simply judging Aron in isolation, the evidence of this FP1 outing shows why he is at least in contention for now.
