Flavio Briatore was key in Franco Colapinto’s arrival at Alpine last year.The executive advisor of the French Formula 1 team negotiated with Williams the transfer for five years and gave him the opportunity to race from the seventh date of the previous season.With renewed expectations, Elitaliano keeps his faith in the Argentine driver intact.
As part of the presentation of the A526, the French team’s new car last Friday, Briatore gave a press conference with Spanish media and was consulted by Colapinto.”I tell him things all day, also outside the office. Colapinto has talent. These guys come to F1 with a lot of pressure, they come very young, there is enormous pressure for all the rookies and Franco suffered a little more than the rest, but now he is on par with everyone. We can work on him and that is why we put him in the car last year,” he said in testimonies published by Mundo Deportivo.
While he highlighted that the Pilar native is on par with his teammate, the experienced Pierre Gasly.”If you look at Colapinto’s speed in the race, it is the same as Pierre Gasly’s. The only difference there is is the classification,” he added.
Then he expanded the panorama and explained: “Franco Colapinto’s problem last year was the classification. During the race, he is competitive. We saw it. We are working a lot with him, with the engineers, with the car, etc.”
He also pointed out the maturity he sees in the 22-year-old runner from Buenos Aires: “Franco is changing a lot. He is more of a man. Last year he was like a child, recently arrived from La Pampa. Now he is much more aggressive, much stronger. And we see it all the time, I see that his maturity increases every day. He is more interested in talking to the engineers. He spends a lot of time in the wind tunnel. He has a lot of discipline. We see it.”
The Godfather, as Briatore is known, highlighted: “For me (Colapinto), he is competitive. He needs to focus on qualifying. Sometimes when you go to qualifying, there are too many emotions and the car is not driven by talent. You have to go to qualifying, relax and make sure you have enough talent to do well.”
The 75-year-old Italian was the head of this structure during the Benetton and Renault era, with which those teams achieved two world championships with Michael Schumacher (1994/1995) and Fernando Alonso (2005/2006), respectively.He returned to the Máxima in mid-2024 so that Alpine is competitive, beyond that only victory – so far – by Esteban Ocon in Hungary 2021.
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And he added: “We want to fight for points again in every race, fight for the podium basically in every race. We want to be there.”When asked what it meant for him to have a competitive car, he indicated: “First car, second car, third car, fourth car.”
This Monday the first sign was seen, since Colapinto himself achieved the third best time at the start of the private tests in Barcelona.
Finally, Flavio Briatore reflected: “As long as you are in the points you are competitive. When you go to an F1 race and you always think that you are going to finish in the top 8, it can be third, fourth or fifth, and then it depends on the circuits, because perhaps there is a circuit that suits your car well and you are 4th, but in another circuit you are 6th, but you must always be among the top 8. You have to score points in each race. That is being competitive for me.”
