{"id":284673,"date":"2025-11-15T12:27:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T12:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/284673\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T12:27:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T12:27:11","slug":"franco-colapintos-2026-alpine-contract-earned-says-james-vowles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/284673\/","title":{"rendered":"Franco Colapinto\u2019s 2026 Alpine contract \u201cearned\u201d, says James Vowles"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Vowles says he’s “really proud” of Franco Colapinto<\/a> after the Argentinian confirmed his 2026 seat with Alpine<\/a>, adding that the Formula 1 rookie has now shown the potential Williams<\/a> first spotted in him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As an alumnus of the Williams Driver Academy, Colapinto made his debut with the Grove outfit at the end of 2024 before moving to Alpine as a reserve driver for the 2025 season. He was quickly promoted as he replaced a faltering Jack Doohan<\/a>, and as Alpine has slowly improved over the year, the team has now confirmed his place on the 2026 grid with an extended contract.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the media ahead of the 2025 Brazil Grand Prix, the Williams team principal was pleased to hear of the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m really proud of what he’s done \u2013 certainly over the last, let’s say, seven races. It\u2019s a big turnaround for me. He’s showing the world the performance I saw when he was with Williams,\u201d Vowles said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he’s earned that seat for next year, and I was incredibly proud of him when they announced it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The contract is understood to see him locked into the Alpine seat until the end of 2026, leaving only Isack Hadjar<\/a>, Yuki Tsunoda<\/a> and Liam Lawson<\/a> with unconfirmed futures in the championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Pierre <\/p>\n

Pierre Gasly, Alpine, Franco Colapinto, Alpine<\/p>\n

Photo by: Kym Illman \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Argentinian driver brings with him strong commercial value – something that will have certainly sweetened the deal for the French racing team.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s got such a huge following. On the way in here [to the Sao Paulo Grand Prix] \u2013 and I’m really not exaggerating \u2013 it took half an hour because there’s about 50,000 incredibly passionate Argentinians, and that\u2019s what I like to see,” Vowles added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sport is in a health it\u2019s never been in before, and Franco has this huge following. So I think he’s done it on performance; he also does it on what the sport’s getting out of it as well at the same time. I think he’s got a bright future \u2013 it’s for him to keep earning it year on year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The driver sits 20th in the drivers’ standings with zero points, only ahead of Doohan, who competed in just six races this season. His team-mate, Pierre Gasly<\/a>, sits in 18th with 22 points, three ahead of Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Vowles says he’s “really proud” of Franco Colapinto after the Argentinian confirmed his 2026 seat with Alpine,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[1035,120293,49,48,578,576,577,1036,129308,120292,129309,82,4962],"class_list":{"0":"post-284673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-alpine","9":"tag-autu00f3dromo-josu00e9-carlos-pace","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-f1","13":"tag-formula-1","14":"tag-formula1","15":"tag-franco-colapinto","16":"tag-franco-colapintou2019s-2026-alpine-contract-u201cearnedu201d","17":"tag-sao-paulo-gp","18":"tag-says-james-vowles","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-trendingteam"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}