Why a controversial F1 driver change is failing so far

When Alpine's controversial early Formula 1 driver change happened barely a month ago, Alpine boss Flavio Briatore asked only three things of Franco Colapinto: "he needs to be fast, not crash, and score points".

Alpine only gave its rookie Jack Doohan six grands prix before bringing Colapinto in the expectation he would be a clear upgrade.

But in three races since replacing Doohan, Colapinto is 0 for 3 in meeting Briatore’s demands - and this move is really not working out as planned.

Like his predecessor, Colapinto hasn’t scored a point so far, although he’s had half the number of races Doohan did.

He’s shunted out of qualifying at Imola, spent a tricky first F1 weekend in Monaco off the pace, then looked slow again in Spain at the outset. It seemed like a much-need improvement was on the cards in qualifying - only for Colapinto to miss his final Q1 run with a technical problem that he might have accidentally caused himself.

Unfortunately, Barcelona was irreversibly compromised by that qualifying problem, and Colapinto was consigned to a third race in a row spent stuck near the back of the field.

Despite Briatore’s subsequent claims to the contrary, Alpine said Colapinto had five races before a new evaluation ahead of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in July. And Briatore laid out three key targets for Colapinto to meet.

He’s more than halfway into his supposed guaranteed time in the seat as Alpine works out what to do with its driver line-up long-term, and by this point of his Williams cameo last year – which is a valid comparison given that was another mid-season switch into a car Colapinto had little knowledge of – Colapinto looked a much more convincing midfield asset.

So a full triple-header is at least enough to do an initial evaluation of how Colapinto is getting on against Briatore’s own instructions.

Has he been fast?

No.

Colapinto didn’t really show much of a spark during the triple-header and is averaging a four tenths of a second deficit to Gasly in Q1.

By comparison Doohan was only 0.126s slower than Gasly in their Q1 appearances, although the average grows to 0.271s when factoring in a heavy Q2 deficit in Bahrain (and a big Q2 margin in Australia is discounted as it is skewed by a yellow flag).

So far, Colapinto has been a step down from Doohan on one-lap pace, and he admits that getting more out of the car on low fuel is his main priority to improve. A Q1 shunt at Imola helped him technically get into Q2 there but obviously he didn’t take part, and he did not make it out of Q1 in Monaco or Spain.

At Barcelona he had got encouragingly close to Gasly in practice (0.131s adrift) although was still on a three-run programme in Q1, thus needing to burn an extra set of softs.

But after a solid second Q1 run, which was slightly faster than Gasly’s first (completed when the track was slower), Colapinto didn’t get his third effort, which was a shame as this looked like it might genuinely be a more competitive showing. This would have been especially encouraging given Colapinto was missing the latest floor upgrade, which is not thought to be a significant laptime gain, but has still left him at a small disadvantage. 

Grinding to a halt in the pitlane was the cause. That seemed unlucky, although Alpine has been a little unclear about the cause of the problem.

Colapinto got caught out by the queue building after joining the fast lane, to the point of half-taking evasive action behind Gasly, which was accompanied by a horrible clunking audible from his onboard camera. Immediately, the car lost drive and all Colapinto trying to accelerate achieved was the creation of more nasty sounds.

📻 "Switch off, switch off"

An unfortunate end to qualifying in Q1 for Franco Colapinto 😢#F1 #SpanishGP pic.twitter.com/xXjXAGw0OL

— Formula 1 (@F1) May 31, 2025

So the failure seems to have been self-inflicted by not engaging the clutch in time. And it left Colapinto without the chance to show how much of a step had really been made since Friday - with FP3, and even what was visible in Q1, clearly Colapinto’s best showing relative to Gasly since Imola FP3.

The perception of Colapinto’s speed hangs in the balance going to Canada and Austria. If FP3 and Q1 in Spain were indicative of real progress, making a real step in the next two events should be possible, and Colapinto will at least be on a par with what Doohan was showing.

But if they were an outlier, or if Colapinto keeps starting weekends as far off as he has so far, then he is seriously at risk of not being fast enough to persevere with.

Is he crashing?

Not since shunting in his first qualifying session for Alpine.

Colapinto says he is lacking a “bit of confidence with the car in some areas” as some corner entries he feels “a bit uncomfortable and not able to carry the speed I need”.

And struggling to make an emphatic step could be tracked back to his Imola Q1 crash - which seemed to rob Colapinto of confidence very early on.

Shunting heavily at Imola immediately was a bad look given part of the reason Doohan was dropped is Briatore felt he made too many errors, and Colapinto’s own short F1 career has had too many big crashes in it.

The good thing is he’s not done the same since. The bad news is it might be because his confidence has been shaken and/or his feeling in the car is rendering him unable to push.

In Monaco he started miles adrift of Gasly, and even the inevitable step from Friday to Saturday left him six tenths away. As mentioned earlier, FP3 and Q1 in Spain were looking a good step better - but again, Colapinto had left himself with a lot of work to do on Friday, almost a second off in practice.

It stands to reason that, especially after Imola, Colapinto has been feeling his way into weekends more. And better to do that than keep crashing - which he’s so far avoided repeating. He has made it to the finish in all three races, so is at least doing better than Doohan was on that front.

But, eventually, it’s not that much better if a too-cautious approach just leaves Colapinto too far off to be competitive when it counts.

Is he scoring points?

No.

And neither was Doohan - so when Doohan was dropped, a key part of the justification was how competitive the midfield is, and how Alpine needed to maximise its best weekends.

Doohan failed to score a point in his six attempts this season, plus his late call-up for last year’s Abu Dhabi season finale.

He came closest in Bahrain, where he ran solidly in the top 10 for most of the race until a tough final stint that was impacted by a safety car - without which, points were likely.

That was the only time in Doohan’s six grands prix that Gasly scored points for Alpine. Gasly did grab a point in the Miami sprint race, too - but it’s not like Doohan was fumbling many opportunities.

In that sense, Briatore put needless pressure on Colapinto by making points an important target. Especially as that’s what every driver will be aiming to do anyway.

But Briatore did still do it. And he cannot be happy to see just how far the second car has been from the top 10 in the last three races.

Gasly should have been in the points at Imola, which was compromised by his own mistake and the team’s strategy choice, but he was a comfortable eighth in Spain. Colapinto has been an anonymous 16th, 13th and 15th - hamstrung by his poor starting positions every time.

It’s hard to judge his race pace as a result of that, but a generous conclusion is that if or when Colapinto qualifies better, his race results will get better, too.

What’s unclear is how high his ceiling is - because right now it looks lower than what he managed at Williams, where he scored points in two of his first four starts, and began life in F1 much more brightly.

Whereas what Colapinto’s doing now is neither what Alpine needs, nor good enough to have dropped Doohan for.

If Briatore was right about one thing, it’s that the midfield is incredibly competitive. Teams like Sauber and Aston Martin, which started the season struggling, are now much improved and fighting for points.

To hammer that home for Alpine, it slipped back to last in the championship after Spain despite Gasly scoring points for only the third time.

And it will struggle to change that with only one car occasionally threatening the top 10.