Alpine are in a fascinating position ahead of the 2025 Formula 1 season.
It’ll be Alpine’s last year as a factory team before they abandon their Renault engines and become a Mercedes customer outfit.
It will help them reduce the number of employees working on their F1 project and they’ll hope they can follow in the footsteps of McLaren who proved you can win the constructors’ championship while using key components from other teams.
While that eliminates one potential problem team principal Oliver Oakes and executive advisor Flavio Briatore were facing, there’s another much more immediate issue.
Pierre Gasly is a Grand Prix winner and was one of the most in-form drivers at the end of last season.
Gasly has been impressed with Alpine’s work behind the scenes, but there are already question marks over his new teammate Jack Doohan.
The Australian made his F1 debut at last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix although Jolyon Palmer described Doohan’s debut as ‘difficult’.
Doohan is said to only have a short-term contract at Alpine that could see him be replaced after the first five races of 2025.
This has placed him under plenty of pressure, especially when you consider that Alpine moved to sign Franco Colapinto from Williams over the winter.
However, speaking on the James Allen on F1 Podcast, journalist Ben Hunt believes that some staff within the Anglo-French outfit believe that another driver is actually a better option.
Alpine insiders think Paul Aron is the team’s best option to replace Jack Doohan
Hunt’s colleague Rebecca Clancy was asked about the driver situation at Alpine and said: “It’s a tricky one, isn’t it?
“They’ve got quite a list of reserve drivers, haven’t they? They just seem to be signing them up like Colapinto going over to add to the mix.
“Doohan’s seat is unsafe. I definitely agree with you, James, that I disagree with the comment that Oliver Oakes doesn’t make any decisions. I think he very much does.
READ MORE: Who is Alpine F1 driver Jack Doohan? All to know from his girlfriend to dad
“It’ll be one to watch. It’ll be fascinating to see firstly how they perform, if Jack Doohan’s performing, he’ll keep the seat.
“Pierre Gasly, we know, is a race winner. So I think they’ll be relying very heavily on him as the more experienced of the two. But absolutely guaranteed in the background, there’ll be some fights going on.”
Hunt then added: “Yeah, and if you talk to people in the team, they say Paul Aron is the one that they should be putting in the car, so there we are, another name in the hat.”
How Paul Aron’s junior career compares to Franco Colapinto
Paul Aron is a 21-year-old Estonian driver and highly regarded up and down the Formula 1 paddock.
Briatore believes Mercedes made a mistake releasing Aron who was in contention for last season’s F2 title going into the final race weekend.
He competed against Colapinto in Formula 2 last year and was ahead of the Argentine in the standings before he was unexpectedly earned a promotion into Logan Sargeant’s Williams seat.
READ MORE: Davide Valsecchi now wants to see two more ‘special’ F2 drivers promoted to Formula 1
Aron has regularly finished in the top three of every championship he’s competed in, including Formula 2, Formula 3 and FRECA.
Meanwhile, Colapinto hasn’t won a title since the 2019 Spanish F4 Championship and finished two points behind Aron in the 2023 F3 championship.
Unfortunately for Aron, he’s unlikely to have the same financial backing as Colapinto and the fanfare around the Argentine means that if Doohan is replaced, it’s very hard to see him being overlooked.
But Aron is undoubtedly fast and it would be fascinating to see what he could do if he was handed the opportunity to race in Formula 1.
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