On Saturday at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, Alpine’s newly-appointed team principal Flavio Briatore made somewhat fortuitous comments.
Speaking with Sky Italia, the controversial boss distanced himself from comments that Colapinto would only have five races to prove himself before being replaced.
That’s despite making those comments just a week ago in a press release that the team would us “the next five races” to “give us an opportunity to try something different and after this time period we will assess our options.”
When quizzed on the timeline, Briartore said there were three boxes Colapinto needed to tick.
“It’s not that a driver gets three or five races. I expected more from Jack Doohan. Maybe he needs a break,” said Briatore.
“Franco will race as much as needed. I read somewhere that he’ll have five races, but no, there’s no set limit on his races.
“He needs to be fast, not crash, and score points. I’m only asking him these three things… if he does them well, he will drive forever.”
A day later, Colapinto crashed.
Exiting the right-hander of the Tamburello chicane during the first leg of qualifying, the 21-year-old dropped the left side of his car off the road.
That tipped the car into a spin before ploughing into the tyre barrier.
“It’s just a pity. The team has been doing a great job,” he said.
Franco Colapinto suffers a big off as he makes his Formula 1 qualifying return 💔#F1 #ImolaGP pic.twitter.com/sAEc1kGrcj
— Formula 1 (@F1) May 17, 2025
“The car was very competitive. We found a lot of pace from FP3 to quali. It’s just pushing to the limits and very tight margins here in Q1 and Q2.
“Just finding things lap after lap. Unfortunately, I made a little mistake and it cost us. I’m sorry to the team. They have quite a lot of work to do overnight now.
“I’m sure we are going to come back stronger tomorrow.”
To make matters worse, there was the off-track distraction of Colapinto’s fans making racist comments on Yuki Tsunoda’s Instagram accounts.
That came after Colapinto and Tsunoda had a minor incident during practice. The Japanese driver raised his hand at the Argentine after being impeded on a flying lap.
Colapinto conceded he was at fault for the incident before imploring his fans to tone it down.
“I blocked him yesterday. He was right,” said Colapinto.
“I blocked quite a few people yesterday, just the first day with the car, with the team, it’s always a bit of miscommunication and a bit tricky. And yeah, I blocked him.
“He probably was a bit upset. He’s right to be upset, it’s fine. I don’t know what the Argentinians did?
“I know they are extremely passionate, and they are always very harsh on people. They have to give respect, and that’s what we all want.
“There is a lot of hate on social media nowadays. Of course, we always try and want – for all the drivers – to keep it respectful and keep it calm there.”
The Formula 1 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix gets underway on Sunday at 11pm AEST.
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