{"id":186382,"date":"2025-10-03T01:29:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T01:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/186382\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T01:29:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T01:29:08","slug":"flavio-briatores-negotiations-with-super-impressive-alpine-f1-target-have-now-collapsed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/186382\/","title":{"rendered":"Flavio Briatore’s negotiations with ‘super impressive’ Alpine F1 target have now collapsed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Flavio Briatore has indicated that Alpine are choosing between internal options for the 2026 F1 season. But now it\u2019s emerged that he tried to sign a coveted driver from elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Pierre Gasly recently signed a new contract that runs until the end of 2028. But teammate Franco Colapinto<\/a> only penned a race-by-race deal when he replaced Jack Doohan earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Alpine have privately confirmed that Colapinto will complete the season<\/a> but his future beyond that is undecided. The main threat is believed to be Paul Aron, another of Briatore\u2019s reserve drivers.<\/p>\n

DRIVERTEAMFranco ColapintoAlpine*George RussellMercedesAndrea Kimi AntonelliMercedesLiam LawsonRacing BullsIsack HadjarRacing BullsYuki TsunodaRed BullDrivers out of contract at the end of the 2025 F1 season
*Franco Colapinto on a race-by-race contract<\/p>\n

But now, a report from BBC Sport<\/a> suggests the team were actively pursuing another driver, only to lose out. While Briatore has questioned the standard of young talent in 2025, he was chasing McLaren\u2019s Alex Dunne<\/a> in the background.<\/p>\n

Flavio Briatore unsuccessfully tried to sign Alex Dunne from McLaren<\/p>\n

McLaren and Dunne surprisingly announced on Thursday that they had agreed to part ways. The Irishman had made two FP1 appearances this year and currently ranks fifth in the F2 standings.<\/p>\n

But Dunne and McLaren<\/a> couldn\u2019t agree on what his future should look like. With Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri both under contract and hailed by the team as F1\u2019s best duo, there was no realistic prospect of a seat at the Woking outfit. <\/p>\n

\"AlexPhoto by James Sutton \u2013 Formula 1\/Formula Motorsport Limited via Getty Images<\/p>\n

With his release now official, Dunne is expected to join the Red Bull programme<\/a>. He will stay in F2 for another year (assuming he doesn\u2019t win the series), but has clearly positioned himself as a 2027 Racing Bulls contender.<\/p>\n

Andrew Benson\u2019s report also says that Alpine<\/a> were in talks with Dunne, but \u2018insiders\u2019 say the negotiations with Briatore<\/a> have \u2018collapsed\u2019. It\u2019s unclear if the Italian would have put him straight in the car or signed him as a reserve.<\/p>\n

David Coulthard thinks Alex Dunne is \u2018the real deal\u2019<\/p>\n

It was suggested earlier this month that Alpine had booked a test for Dunne<\/a> to assess his level. Assuming that hasn\u2019t happened already, it clearly won\u2019t go ahead now.<\/p>\n

Dunne was immense on his FP1 debut at the Austrian GP, setting the fourth-fastest time and lapping within a tenth of Piastri. He was only 16th on his second outing at Monza, but a half-second deficit to Norris was still respectable.<\/p>\n

F1 pundit David Coulthard has called Dunne the \u2018real deal\u2019<\/a>. Intriguingly, he was aware more than a month ago that \u2018other people within the sport\u2019 had taken notice.<\/p>\n

Coulthard believes Dunne deserves a place on the grid, but he\u2019ll have to wait at least another year. In the meantime, he must impress not only in F2, but also in any practice sessions or private tests for the Red Bull-owned teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flavio Briatore has indicated that Alpine are choosing between internal options for the 2026 F1 season. But now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64462,821,64,63,10367,1627,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-186382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-alex-dunne","9":"tag-alpine","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-flavio-briatore","13":"tag-formula-1-driver-market","14":"tag-motor","15":"tag-motor-sports","16":"tag-motosport","17":"tag-motosports","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}