Flavio Briatore Says Franco Colapinto Arrived ‘Lost.’ Now He Calls Him a Completely Different Driver

• Flavio Briatore admits he doubted Franco Colapinto early on, saying the Argentine arrived at Alpine looking lost and that it might not have been his time in Formula 1.
• After the summer break Colapinto turned his year around, started beating Pierre Gasly regularly, and changed Briatore’s mind completely.
• Alpine handed him a race seat for 2026 alongside Gasly, a decision Briatore frames as reward for the way Colapinto responded to hard truths.

Franco Colapinto has heard the doubts spoken out loud, by the most powerful person in his own garage. Flavio Briatore, the 75-year-old executive running Alpine, did not soften his early verdict on the young Argentine. He questioned whether Colapinto belonged in Formula 1 at all, and he did it in public.

What makes the story compelling is where it ended up. The driver Briatore once described as lost is now the one he points to as proof that tough love can work. Colapinto did not crumble under the criticism. He answered it, and he earned a race seat for 2026 in the process.

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A promotion that came too soon

Colapinto arrived at Alpine in January 2025 as a reserve driver on a multi-year deal, signed from Williams after a brief and eye-catching run at the end of the previous campaign. The plan, on paper, was patience. That plan did not survive contact with Alpine’s restless management.

From the Imola weekend onward, Colapinto was thrown into a race seat in place of Jack Doohan. It was a sudden elevation, and the early returns were difficult. The performances did not match the promise that had made his name, and the pressure built quickly inside a team that does not wait long for answers.

Briatore was blunt about it. He said the early showings were not what he expected from Colapinto, and he went further, suggesting that perhaps it had not been the right moment to put the young driver into the car at all. For a 22-year-old still finding his feet at the top level, hearing that from his own team principal could have been the end of his confidence.

Lost, in Briatore’s words

The word Briatore kept returning to was lost. He described a driver who needed time to settle, who required three or four races simply to find his bearings before anyone could fairly judge him. It was a candid assessment, and it was not a flattering one.

Yet there was a logic underneath the bluntness. Briatore has built a career on pushing drivers and watching how they respond. The early criticism was not an exit notice so much as a test. He wanted to see whether Colapinto would shrink or grow, whether the young man would retreat into excuses or take the difficult feedback and use it.

Colapinto chose the second path. Rather than push back against the public doubts, he went to work on the parts of his game that were costing him. He leaned harder into the engineering side, building a closer relationship with the people who set up his car and understanding the machinery in a way he had not before.

The turn after the summer

The change showed up after the summer break. Colapinto came back a more secure driver, and the results began to reflect it. He started beating his experienced teammate Pierre Gasly on a regular basis, which is the clearest internal measure any young driver can offer.

The cruel twist was that Alpine had already stopped developing the car by then. The team turned its attention toward the future, leaving Colapinto with a machine that could not reward his improved form with points. Had the car kept pace, his stronger second half might have appeared on the scoreboard rather than only in the eyes of those watching closely.

Briatore was watching closely. He admitted he was impressed by how Colapinto responded to the tough love, describing a completely different person from the one who had struggled in those first races. The driver who had looked lost had become secure, committed, and far more convincing.

A different person

That phrase, a different person, is the heart of Briatore’s reassessment. He has framed Colapinto’s progress as a transformation rather than a gradual improvement, a young driver who needed to be challenged before he could find his level. The criticism, in Briatore’s telling, was part of the making of him.

There is something old-fashioned about the approach, and it will not be to everyone’s taste. Publicly doubting a young driver is a risk, and it can break confidence as easily as it builds it. But in Colapinto’s case the gamble appears to have paid off. He took the hardest version of the feedback and turned it into fuel.

For Colapinto, the validation arrived in the most concrete form possible. Alpine confirmed him in a race seat for 2026 alongside Gasly, completing the line-up and ending the speculation about his future. The decision was a statement, a clear signal that the team believes in him for the road ahead.

What he carries into 2026

Colapinto enters this season as a driver who has already survived the kind of scrutiny that ends careers. He has been doubted by his own boss, dropped into a seat before he was ready, and judged harshly in his first races. He came through all of it with his seat intact and his standing inside the team stronger than ever.

The relationship with Briatore is a large part of that story. The 75-year-old is not a man known for sentiment, and his praise is not handed out lightly. When he says Colapinto has become a different person, it carries the conviction of someone who was openly skeptical not long ago.

The challenge now is to build on it. Alpine remain in the middle of a long rebuild, and the car is unlikely to hand Colapinto easy results in 2026. But he has already proven the most important thing about himself, that he can take the hardest feedback in the sport and come out the other side better for it. For a driver once written off inside his own garage, that is a foundation worth having.

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Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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