Flavio Briatore was left seething after Alpine's double DNF at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, laying the blame squarely on Franco Colapinto for a reckless move that took out teammate Pierre Gasly.
On lap 36 restart, Colapinto locked his front tyres on the dusty, low-grip inside of the Baku street circuit, slamming into the side of Gasly and taking both drivers out of the race. McLaren's Lando Norris was also collected in the incident, robbing Alpine of a likely double points finish.
Both Gasly and Norris were upset with Colapinto's driving, with Norris even calling for the FIA to consider a one-race ban. But the harshest criticism came from Briatore himself.
"Obviously I'm extremely disappointed with the outcome of today's race, knowing we lost valuable points in the Championship fight," Briatore said in Alpine's post-race press release. "These sorts of incidents shouldn't happen, particularly when we were running well with both cars in point-scoring positions. I feel very sorry for the team and for Pierre who did a great job all weekend and my apologies also go to Lando and McLaren for ruining their race."
Briatore didn't hold back on Colapinto's error. "I know that Franco has taken full responsibility for it, as he should; in fact, he braked far too late considering the context of the race and the safety car restart. It was a very poor move for a driver of his experience," he said.
The incident comes as a bitter blow for Colapinto, who had been enjoying his strongest spell of form in F1 to date. The 23-year-old Argentine recently earned a new Alpine deal for the 2027 season to remain alongside Gasly at the Enstone-based team.
Briatore said he would take time to reflect on the incident. "I want to take time to reflect on it and consider what course of action should be taken, so we can learn from it and avoid such a situation in future," he concluded.
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