Flavio Briatore is not happy, “at all”, with Franco Colapinto’s performances as the much-lauded Argentinean rookie has not ticked the boxes.

Colapinto replaced the under-fire Jack Doohan at Alpine at round seven of the F1 2025 championship with Briatore asking just three things of the former Williams substitute.

Are Franco Colapinto’s Alpine days numbered?

He said the driver “needs to be fast, not crash, and score points,” adding: “I’m only asking him these three things – not 10. If he does them well, he’ll drive forever.”

Colapinto is 0 for 3.

Not only has his crashed, breaking rule two when he binned the A525 in qualifying for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, but he’s also failed to tick the other two boxes as he’s yet to show pace or score a point.

Speaking ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, Briatore billed the Barcelona race as the “first real race of Franco”, saying “we’ll see this race, we need the full race”.

The race, though, didn’t go to plan.

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While Pierre Gasly qualified and finished eighth at the Spanish Grand Prix, Colapinto was out in Q1 where he was the second slowest driver, while he was third last in the Grand Prix.

Briatore, Alpine’s executive director, admits he’s not happy with what he has seen so far.

“If I were to say now that I was happy, it would be a lie. I’m not happy at all. Now we have to see how the season develops for him,” the Italian told Sky Deutschland.

“Of course, we also have to recognise that Franco is very young and has a lot of pressure from all directions, not only from Argentina. Now he has gradually found his way into it.

“Franco is strong enough. In this job, you need to be able to regain your confidence as quickly as possible. So I hope he gets it done quickly and gets on track.”

Speaking to the media, including PlanetF1.com, at the Spanish Grand Prix, Briatore refused to guarantee Colapinto would see out the season with Alpine.

He wouldn’t even promise the five races set out in the team’s press release to announce that he was replacing Doohan.

“Races,” he said, “I don’t know, honestly. I never tell five races, three races, four races, one race. We see.

“If Colapinto is performing, he’s driving the car. If not, we’ll see. 2025 is a year we need to prepare ourselves for 2026. So whatever experiment I need doing, we’re doing.

“I don’t know at this moment if Franco will stay for the season or not, but let’s see. Depends on the performance. We’re only looking at the performance — nothing else.”

Nico Rosberg fears the writing could be on the wall for Colapinto.

The 2016 World Champion claims Briatore does not always treat his drivers well, claiming it is even a challenge for Briatore’s lead driver to deal with.

“Colapinto is currently on the wrong side of Flavio and you don’t want to be there,” said the Sky F1 pundit. “Flavio leaves his number two drivers on the left. He is not interested in them.

“It’s very extreme with Flavio. Mentally it’s an ultra-big challenge.”

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