{"id":8540,"date":"2025-07-20T13:50:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T13:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/8540\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T13:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T13:50:08","slug":"franco-colapinto-not-safe-with-briatore-a-bomb-waiting-to-explode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/8540\/","title":{"rendered":"Franco Colapinto ‘not safe’ with Briatore a ‘bomb’ waiting to ‘explode’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Franco Colapinto may say he\u2019s \u201cnot really concerned\u201d about his Alpine future as he has Flavio Briatore\u2019s \u201ctrust\u201d, but Riccardo Patrese has warned him that it could change as quickly as a \u201cbomb\u201d exploding.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s super sub as he impressed the paddock during his nine-race stint with Williams, Alpine snapped up Colapinto in the off-season as one of their official reserve drivers.<\/p>\n

\u2018So Franco Colapinto in this moment is not safe\u2019<\/p>\n

His arrival added to the pressure on debutant Jack Doohan to perform, and when he didn\u2019t, he was booted out of the race seat to be replaced by Colapinto<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Colapinto, though, also hasn\u2019t produced the results with the driver yet to get off the mark in six races.<\/p>\n

What he does have on his record are two crashes, as he lost control of the car during qualifying at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix and then again in qualifying at Silverstone.<\/p>\n

After Colapinto\u2019s latest crash, Alpine executive director Flavio Briatore was caught on camera with his head in his hands.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s led to speculation that Colapinto could be given his marching orders before the season is over as PlanetF1.com understands from sources close to the situation that Valtteri Bottas has had positive talks with the team with a view to a mid-season driver change.<\/p>\n

The brutal world of Formula 1:<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 The ten greatest mid-season F1 driver swaps of the 21st century<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 The ten worst mid-season F1 driver swaps of the 21st century<\/a><\/p>\n

The team is also speaking with former Red Bull driver Sergio Perez, although that\u2019s said to be with F1 2026 in mind.<\/p>\n

Patrese, who knows Briatore from his 1993 F1 season with Benetton which ended when the team principal told him to \u201cseek an alternate drive\u201d, has warned Colapinto that the Italian is a \u201cbomb\u201d that could go off at any moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything can happen with Briatore,\u201d Patrese told a betting website.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my point of view, Briatore is like a bomb that can explode at any minute; a Second World War bomb that you discover in some places around the world which goes off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Colapinto not performing and making accidents, he can have a problem with Briatore who won\u2019t help with a driver\u2019s morale.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Colapinto in this moment is not safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Argentine driver, though, insists he is not worried as he believes he has Briatore\u2019s backing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not really concerned,\u201d Colapinto told the media, including PlanetF1.com, in Austria. \u201cHe has been very supportive and he trusts in the decision he made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further quizzed on his future a week later at Silverstone after his initial five-race deal expired, the driver revealed that while he is now on a race by race situation, his only focus is helping Alpine improve.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think every time it\u2019s race by race, you know,\u201d he said of his Alpine contract situation.<\/p>\n

Pressed on whether Alpine had given his \u2018goals\u2019 to retain the seat long-term, he replied: \u201cNo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think in general, we are just trying to focus on doing the best job we can. We are trying to get better as a team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are, of course, on my side, pushing the most to improve the aspects that I have to improve. I\u2019m very good in the races, I\u2019m struggling a bit more in qualifying.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that there is things to find on our side, but also I think in general as a team, we need to still do a step with the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not quite there to score points every race, that\u2019s what we want. And I think we need to make things better on every side as well, a part of just focusing on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next: Montoya warns Red Bull \u2018careers lost\u2019 amid Verstappen replacement questions<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Franco Colapinto may say he\u2019s \u201cnot really concerned\u201d about his Alpine future as he has Flavio Briatore\u2019s \u201ctrust\u201d,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[821,64,63,817,10367,813,816,1802,818,44,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-8540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-alpine","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-flavio-briatore","13":"tag-formula-1","14":"tag-formula1","15":"tag-franco-colapinto","16":"tag-home-page","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8540","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=8540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}