Alpine has seen enough from Franco Colapinto to keep him in its Formula 1 car for 2027. This decision comes after the Argentine driver's career trajectory has shown a largely upward trend, though not without question marks.
Colapinto, now part of a team that uses Mercedes engines, is considered to be within an acceptable margin of teammate Pierre Gasly. But were there better options available in the driver market? Our team gives their takes.
Conservatism Rules in F1
In 90% of cases, F1 teams will go conservative when making driver market decisions, and this is further, somewhat frustrating evidence of that. Colapinto brings useful backing and is within an acceptable margin of Gasly most weekends.
But is there an available driver out there who could score more points than Colapinto and get closer than Colapinto's adjusted 0.176s average qualifying deficit to Gasly in 2026? I think so. I'd back Yuki Tsunoda to do so, or Liam Lawson if there isn't space for him within Red Bull's teams. Or how about one of Formula 2's leading drivers, who certainly have the potential to do so?
New Alpine junior Alex Dunne, for example, who looked so impressive in a McLaren last year, hasn't even been given a chance to shine in an FP1 with Alpine yet. Ultimately Alpine - like a lot of teams - must feel there aren't enough reasons to take that risk to find out. It does feel quite counter to the Flavio Briatore way to hand someone an extension this early when they have less than half the points of their team-mate.
And it's ironic that it was a great bit of anti-conservatism from Williams that got Colapinto a foot in the door in the first place and onto Alpine's radar. It just makes you wonder how many other junior talents are being overlooked simply because they're never given a chance to shine like Colapinto was by Williamsg
The Right Team and Driver for Each Other - Right Now
In Alpine's current position of making some progress from a nadir, just not as quickly as it hoped, it has more question marks and problems to tackle than its drivers. So in the absence of an ousted top-tier driver popping onto the market and being up for a gamble, or someone in the junior ranks showing unstoppable future superstar momentum, Colapinto continuity is sensible.
He's having a decent enough season; his bad days are a bit worse than you'd hope for with the experience he now has, and his good days aren't quite impressive enough to suggest he'll be that future superstar himself, but he's a known quantity for Alpine and still relatively early in his F1 career with scope to improve.
If that sounds like a bit of a 'you'll do' outcome for both driver and team...well, it is. And that's fine for 2027, but you'd hope that over the next 12 months both Alpine and Colapinto would show enough progress to make either or both of them more active players in the 2028 market.
Alpine Needs to Rethink Juniors
Did you know that Alpine has two juniors in the top four in the Formula 2 standings right now? You probably didn't, and I can't fault you if so, because neither Gabriele Mini (third in the standings) nor aforementioned former McLaren protege Dunne (fourth) have had much exposure. This shows Alpine might need to be bolder in giving its own juniors a chance rather than sticking with existing drivers.
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