Alpine’s 2026 seat will be an in-house fight: Franco Colapinto vs Paul Aron. That’s the line from Flavio Briatore, who’s shut the door on any external candidates and doubled down on the team’s own pipeline to find Pierre Gasly’s next teammate.
“It’s between Franco and Paul,” Briatore told The Race, dismissing speculation around names further afield and even some linked to Alpine from outside the system. No Yuki Tsunoda. No Liam Lawson. No shopping around. Just Colapinto, already in the car, and Aron, the reserve waiting in the wings.
It’s a decisive stance after a turbulent year at Enstone. Alpine began the season with Jack Doohan alongside Gasly, a bold call that lasted six race weekends. Doohan was then shuffled back to reserve and Colapinto — last year’s Williams super sub — was put in at Imola. It hasn’t exactly been fireworks. Heading into round 17, the Argentine is still searching for his first point.
Briatore’s been blunt about that. He’s already said the promotion might’ve come too early for Colapinto, that the results weren’t what he expected. And yet, the 22-year-old remains on the list. The reason feels as much philosophical as it is practical: Briatore wants to keep it in the family and back the drivers Alpine has brought through.
He paints it as a wider generational challenge, too. Young drivers arrive with hype and pressure, then meet the reality of a thousand-person operation and a car that demands precise feedback. He name-checked Kimi Antonelli and Gabriel Bortoleto to make the point — form ebbs and flows early on, and judgment can be brutal if you don’t zoom out a little.
“After six-seven or eight races, you see, Antonelli was better, and after that Bortoleto was better. Then after that Franco is better,” Briatore said, sketching out the learning curve as he sees it. The subtext: Alpine needs to decide who can steady the ship next to Gasly through the 2026 regulation reset, not just who bagged a purple sector last Sunday.
Aron, for his part, is a known quantity inside the garage even if he hasn’t had the same spotlight. Briatore calls him “a very nice guy, a very quick driver,” which is exactly the sort of deliberately measured endorsement that keeps a reserve in genuine contention without inflating expectations. If Alpine wants a calmer, data-led build into 2026, Aron makes sense. If they want the higher-reward swing on the driver already taking the hits in public, Colapinto keeps the seat.
What Briatore doesn’t want is a fishing expedition across the paddock. “I don’t see any other possibility,” he said. And then came a familiar riff: when the great ones arrive, you know. He rolled out the hits — Michael Schumacher in sports cars, Lewis Hamilton’s GP2 campaign, Fernando Alonso stunning Minardi — and then the kicker: “Now, take away Max [Verstappen]. The rest…”
It’s a worldview that also explains his skepticism toward Formula 2 as a crystal ball. Results bounce around from weekend to weekend. Even Alpine-backed Kush Maini doesn’t move the needle for Briatore in that context. In his mind, GP2 used to give you a cleaner read — Hamilton and Nico Rosberg ticking off podiums with metronomic precision — whereas today’s junior ladder produces more noise than signal.
Strip all that back and the message is clear: Alpine will make one of its own a 2026 starter. Colapinto’s candidacy rests on evidence he can convert mileage and bruises into consistency by year’s end. Aron’s rests on promise, calm, and the belief that the quiet one might be the right one for a massive reset.
Gasly, the constant in all of this, remains the reference point. Alpine needs a partner who can bring points, yes, but also carry the load of development and direction as the 2026 power units and aero rules arrive. If Briatore is right and the shortlist is truly just two names long, that decision says as much about Alpine’s identity under his watch as it does about either driver: no shortcuts, no saviors from outside, and no appetite for the noise.
Now comes the part that actually matters — the laps. Colapinto has a runway to strengthen his case. Aron has a chance to turn quiet faith into a promotion. And Alpine, for once, seems intent on keeping the conversation tightly controlled and entirely in-house.
