Alpine F1’s Barcelona test pits Colapinto against Doohan, as Briatore evaluates speed, teamwork, and readiness for the upcoming season.
Franco Colapinto’s quest to revive his F1 career with Alpine shifts into high gear this week in Barcelona.
Although official pre-season testing won’t begin until later this month in Bahrain, several teams have already run two- and three-year-old cars on various circuits under “TPC” testing provisions.
Understandably, much attention has been on Ferrari, where Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc tested the 2024 car for Pirelli’s 2026 development program in Barcelona.
On Tuesday, Hamilton was a tenth faster than Leclerc—but the following day, Leclerc was notably quicker than his new seven-time world champion teammate. Of course, no conclusions should be drawn from this!
“It’s great that he joined Ferrari,” said MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi, referring to Hamilton.
“I’m curious to see how it all plays out. I’m really excited to see how he performs. And how Leclerc performs.”
In Alpine’s garage, intrigue is also brewing: reserve driver Colapinto, newly signed for 2025, is alternating between the 2022 and 2023 cars.
Jack Doohan, widely rumored to be at risk of being replaced by Colapinto after the first five races of the season, is also in action in the same cars. The head-to-head in Barcelona will give Alpine an initial indication of which driver is faster.
This is, in any case, the wish of Flavio Briatore, who has requested a “highly detailed report” on both drivers: performance, of course, but also behavior, ability to improve car setups, quality of feedback and suggestions, teamwork, mindset, stress management, and more.
Does Colapinto already have the upper hand? Not necessarily. According to one of his former teammates, Roman Rusinov, the hype surrounding Colapinto is overstated. In 2021, they were teammates at G-Drive Racing in WEC.
“Personally, Franco Colapinto didn’t impress me in Formula 1. He had two options: drive cautiously, which risked going unnoticed, or push as hard as possible, which led to constant crashes.”
“At Williams, he did exactly the same as he did at G-Drive. Franco is a good driver in terms of lap times, but in terms of results, he has never lived up to expectations. He makes a lot of mistakes.”
“Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to learn from them. He just keeps trying to prove he’s the fastest—and makes errors. In the six races Franco did for us, he made five mistakes. In the only race where Colapinto didn’t make a mistake, we won.”
“So, he’s a good and fairly quick driver, but he’s still a kid. Speed alone isn’t enough. I really like Franco, he’s a great guy, but overall, the hype surrounding him isn’t justified by the final results.”
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Colapinto vs. Doohan: Alpine’s Showdown for F1 Supremacy Colapinto vs. Doohan: Alpine’s Showdown for F1 Supremacy
