Villeneuve sticks the boot in as Alpine doubles down on Colapinto for 2026
Jacques Villeneuve has never needed an invitation to call it as he sees it, and the 1997 world champion’s latest target is Franco Colapinto. With Alpine confirming the Argentine will stay alongside Pierre Gasly for 2026, Villeneuve dismissed the decision as old-school pragmatism dressed up as planning.
“I think it’s very similar to the era of pay drivers; one driver in the team being a pay driver to finance the team. That’s all Colapinto is,” he told a gambling platform, adding that flashes of speed don’t make up for a lack of consistency. It’s blunt, even by Jacques’ standards, but it lands because Alpine’s season has been exactly that — blunt and bruising.
Colapinto, who stepped into the Alpine after Imola and has been living under a cloud of speculation since, has spent much of 2025 trying to keep his head above water in a car that’s been stuck at the wrong end of the grid. Points have been scarce, optimism scarcer. And yet, ahead of Sao Paulo, Alpine removed the suspense: Colapinto stays. Gasly stays. The team resets around a familiar pairing for the first year of the new regulations.
There’s logic in that. Next season brings a total reboot: new chassis rules, a wholesale power unit rethink, and for Alpine, a decisive shift from Renault factory power to Mercedes customer engines after the plug was pulled on the in-house project. With the ground moving under their feet, continuity in the cockpit is a commodity most technical directors would happily hoard.
Not everyone’s convinced. Davide Valsecchi, ex-GP2 champ turned broadcaster, thinks Alpine missed the moment to be bold. He believes Leonardo Fornaroli — leading the Formula 2 standings and vying to emulate that glittering F3-to-F2 title double — should have been the choice.
“We should call Flavio Briatore and ask him why he’s confirming Colapinto instead of taking Fornaroli,” Valsecchi told Fanpage.it, going on to describe the Italian as quick, clean, low on errors and high on wins. His message was simple: if Formula 1 is a meritocracy, you give the kid a shot.
That’s the tension in Enstone right now. On one side, a board that has clearly prioritised stability under sweeping regulation change, with Colapinto’s incremental gains measured internally rather than via Sunday headlines. On the other, a chorus asking what, exactly, Colapinto has done to close the argument to rookies like Fornaroli — or even Alpine’s own reserve Paul Aron — when the results column is still thin.
Strip the emotion out of it and there’s a defendable case for Alpine’s conservatism. New rules always punish the distracted, and embarking on 2026 with a rookie alongside Gasly would be yet another variable in a team that’s already rewriting its power unit playbook, cooling architecture, and aero philosophy. Colapinto’s not set the world alight, but he has edged closer to Gasly’s baseline, and inside the garage those mini-wins often carry more value than they do on a timing screen taken out of context.
There’s also the simple economics of a rebuild. Villeneuve’s “pay driver” barb is designed to sting, but the reality is most teams weigh sponsorship leverage when two options are otherwise close. That doesn’t mean Colapinto can’t drive; it means F1 remains brutally transactional when you’re not scoring.
Fornaroli’s case is compelling — winners at junior level typically translate well, and the sport’s recent history is littered with rookies who should’ve been in years earlier — but throwing him into an Alpine undergoing a ground-up overhaul is a roll of the dice that Enstone, after a painful 2025, clearly didn’t fancy. There’s time. If Colapinto doesn’t convert this faith into tangible points and fewer unforced errors next year, doors open fast for the hungry and the ready.
The other constant here is Briatore. Alpine’s executive advisor is not shy about making decisive, sometimes unpopular calls, and he’s seen enough new-era resets to know where instability can bite. Keeping Gasly–Colapinto intact gives Alpine a clear read on what’s changed with the car and what hasn’t. For a team plotting a route back from a rock-bottom campaign, that clarity matters.
So yes, Villeneuve will continue to swing. Valsecchi will keep banging the drum for the next one up. And Alpine? They’ve chosen the devil they know for 2026, betting that a cleaner car concept and Mercedes power will show them more of the driver Colapinto flashes in glimpses and less of the rookie learning on the fly.
The brief for the Argentine is straightforward and unforgiving: make this seat indisputable. Because if he doesn’t, the sport won’t wait — not with Aron in the wings and Fornaroli knocking loudly.
