Alpine F1 managing director Steve Nielsen has stated Franco Colapinto’s financial backing is a \u201chappy accident\u201d for the team.<\/p>\n
The Enstone-based squad confirmed last week that Colapinto will remain at the squad in 2026 alongside Pierre Gasly.<\/p>\n
Colapinto was promoted to a full-time seat earlier this season in place of Jack Doohan but has yet to score a point in what has been a challenging campaign for Alpine.<\/p>\n
The Argentine is known to come with major backing from his home country, offering a strong injection of cash for the Alpine team.<\/p>\n
While Nielsen acknowledged the money is a benefit, he highlighted the decision was primarily made from a talent point of view.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can’t ignore the financials,\u201d Nielsen told Sky F1.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, it plays a part in it. But ultimately, we’ve got Franco on talent and the fact that he brings a financial side of the happy accident.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colapinto initially struggled when he joined the team after the Miami Grand Prix, however Alpine has been encouraged by his turnaround at recent events.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult for any of the new drivers coming in,\u201d\u00a0he said. \u201cWe’ve seen some come in and hit the ground running straight away, and we’ve seen others come in and struggle a little bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cFranco obviously did some racing to Williams last year, substituted for Jack from Imola, and struggled a bit to start with, to be honest.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re lucky to have Pierre as a marker, an established driver. Gradually, Franco was able to up his game and take the fight to Pierre in a car that’s not as competitive as we would like to.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut nonetheless, when you compare them to each other, he started doing a reasonable job and became comparable to Pierre, even quicker than Pierre on a few occasions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alpine F1 managing director Steve Nielsen has stated Franco Colapinto’s financial backing is a \u201chappy accident\u201d for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-280384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280384","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=280384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}