Pierre Gasly upstaged Franco Colapinto on his Alpine debut at Imola on Friday, with the Frenchman the surprise package in practice for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Much of the talk before the European leg of the 2025 Formula 1 season started at Imola this weekend focused on Colapinto replacing Jack Doohan as Gasly’s Alpine teammate. Although executive adviser Flavio Briatore only announced the Argentine will get the next five rounds.
The Enstone outfit rotating their line-up was always expected as Alpine paid Williams £8.5m to sign Colapinto as a reserve driver. Briatore now wants to see what the 21-year-old can do next to Gasly, who scored all seven of the team’s points over the first six rounds of the term.
Marc Priestley thinks nobody is ‘expecting’ Franco Colapinto to ‘set the world alight’ at Imola
Gasly even looks likely to be Alpine’s lead driver at the Emilia Romagna GP after emerging as the surprise package in practice at Imola on Friday. The 29-year-old finished FP1 in P6 with a deficit of just 0.151 seconds to McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and ended FP2 in P3 only 0.276s shy.
Colapinto, on the other hand, enjoyed a steadier start to his first meet as an Alpine driver, as the Argentine secured P17 in FP1 and P13 in FP2. He was also 0.828s and 0.751s off Piastri’s pace across both sessions whilst completing 21 and 28 laps – the same tallies Gasly penned.
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Yet Marc Priestley does not think anybody is ‘expecting’ Colapinto to light up the timesheets at the Emilia Romagna GP. Instead, the Williams academy product’s major objective at Imola is only to put a smooth weekend together, given that was where Doohan regularly fell short.
Priestley said on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra (16/5, 16:15): “What Franco needs to do this weekend and the thing that Jack Doohan wasn’t able to do, because Jack Doohan had some good performances at times – particularly in qualifying – but he was never really able to consistently string an entire weekend together.
“That’s the job that Franco Colapinto needs to be able to do. That’s what the team need him to do [and] that’s why he’s been given this opportunity. So, whether he sets the world alight in terms of lap times in his first weekend, I don’t think anybody’s expecting that.
“But if he can build a really strong weekend from start to finish, so a good qualifying and then translate that qualifying into a decent race, I think the team around him will be happy and the opportunities will keep coming for him.”
Franco Colapinto will be desperate to reduce his early deficit to Pierre Gasly at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix
While Priestley doubts many expect Colapinto will be fast from the get-go with Alpine, they will certainly hope he can be closer to Gasly’s lap times during qualifying this Saturday after ranking at the wrong end of the Emilia Romagna GP practice timesheets at Imola on Friday.
The Argentine will also hope that his deficit to the Frenchman does not last long. Colapinto knows Briatore will replace him with Alpine reserve Paul Aron if he does not deliver during the 21-year-old’s five-round run with the Italian setting him strict standards he must reach.
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Briatore proved with Doohan that he is not afraid to make an early change after seeing the Australian fail to match Gasly’s results. The 22-year-old only finished in front of the 29-year-old in two Grands Prix after the Frenchman hit trouble and he out-qualified Gasly just once.
Doohan out-qualified Gasly for the first and only time at the Miami Grand Prix as they took P14 and P18 with 0.288s between their Q1 lap times. He finished in front of the Frenchman when Gasly was disqualified at the Chinese Grand Prix and retired at the Saudi Arabian GP.
