Briatore admits mistake in managing Alpine’s F1 driver line-up

Alpine chief Flavio Briatore admits he may have put too much pressure on the Formula 1 team’s second driver Franco Colapinto, as the Argentinian has yet to get off the mark for the squad.

Colapinto was brought in from Williams as Alpine’s reserve driver and swapped places with fellow rookie Doohan after his six races, with the Australian demoted following May’s Miami Grand Prix.

But thus far, Colapinto hasn’t proven to be an instant upgrade over Doohan as he has found the 2025 Alpine more difficult to get used to than last year’s Williams, joining his colleague as the only other driver yet to score points in 2025.

Colapinto has been staying in the car alongside Pierre Gasly on a race-by-race basis since then, which keeps the pressure piled high on the 22-year-old to get closer to Gasly on a regular basis and convert his talent into points.

But as the F1 field gathered at Zandvoort after the summer break, Briatore has now admitted that perhaps the tough-love approach with his drivers has not been the most productive, acknowledging that Colapinto – and Doohan before him – has been put in a difficult situation.

“We changed Doohan with Franco and maybe he has the same problem of too much pressure to be in Formula 1,” he said on Friday. “Maybe we put [too] much pressure on him. We need to consider sometimes that the driver is a human being and we need to sometimes understand exactly what’s going on in the head of these, because they are young; 19, 20, 22, 23…

“It’s our mistake sometimes to underestimate the human part of the driver. We’re looking always for the timing. Maybe I missed something there in the management of the driver.”

Briatore also suggested that Colapinto may have been promoted too early and will need more time to settle rather than being under the microscope every weekend alongside high-performing Gasly.

“I think for a driver it’s very difficult to cope with this car,” Briatore added. “Maybe it was not the [right] timing to have Franco in Formula 1, maybe he needed another year to be part of Formula 1.

“I’m not happy if you look at the results, that’s what is important. He tried very hard. We tried very hard with the engineering [team] to please him in everything, but really it’s not what I expect from Colapinto.”

Williams team principal James Vowles, who ran Colapinto for the last nine races of 2024, added: “When the pressure is not there you’re able to get a lot more out of the driver, because they’re not concerned about an immediate performance having an impact.

“A good example was Franco’s first time I put him in at Silverstone. He thought it was his only chance to ever get there and my message to him beforehand is: ‘It has nothing to do with lap times, it is about you relaxing and enjoying the moment because this may never come back to you again’. And he did a stellar performance.

“The second change is that three tenths now separate the grid, so when you make a small mistake – and a small mistake is a tenth – you’re last. That’s a different world to where we were before, where frankly you could be a tenth off your team-mate and no one would know about it. So, I think you’ve got two changes that are making this more difficult now.”