Flavio Briatore says he does “not know” if Franco Colapinto will see out the season with Alpine, before refusing to comment on the prospect of Mick Schumacher replacing him.

Alpine are one of two teams already fielding a changed line-up in F1 2025, the other being Red Bull, having made the call to drop Jack Doohan in favour of Colapinto.

Franco Colapinto out, Mick Schumacher in at Alpine?

Doohan had been racing under a cloud of speculation over his long-term future, with talk that he could be replaced by Colapinto stretching all the way back to pre-season.

Miami, according to paddock speculation, represented the sixth and final race of Doohan’s rumoured safety net.

When that ended in retirement, the writing was on the wall with confirmation coming just days later.

Breaking the news, Briatore said in the Alpine statement that Colapinto would have “the next five races” and that “after this time period, we will assess our options”.

He later backtracked on that, telling Sky Italia that Colapinto would race “as much as needed” as “there’s no set limit on his races”.

But two races into his Alpine career and yet to set the stage alight as he did during his nine-race spell with Williams last year, questions are already being asked about Colapinto’s longevity.

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Briatore, though, would offer no guarantees or even a definitive timeframe.

“Franco Colapinto,” the Italian said, “we need to wait one second to judge Franco. We see. We see this race. We need the full race.

“We did Monte Carlo. It was a very special race for everybody. We made a lot of mistakes in qualifying. And in Monte Carlo, you know, qualifying well is the race. Especially this race. Monte Carlo, it was very boring and very annoying.

“Let’s see. This is the first real race of Franco. Races, 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.”

Alpine have several options available should Colapinto fail to meet the three objectives that Briatore set out at Imola when he made his Alpine debut.

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.”

But in his two races for the Enstone team, Colapinto has yet to show pace or score points. Alas, the one thing he has done, was break rule number two – he crashed in qualifying in Imola.

It begs the question, would could replace him if Alpine swing the axe again?

Doohan could be given a second opportunity, while his fellow reserve driver Paul Aron could be handed his F1 debut.

And then there’s Mick Schumacher.

The former F1 driver currently races for Alpine in the World Endurance Championship and has been linked to the Formula 1 team, even testing last year in what was speculated to be a shootout against Doohan at the Paul Ricard circuit.

Asked about the prospect of Schumacher, whose father Michael won two World titles under Briatore’s Renault leadership, racing for Alpine either this year or next, Briatore responded: “Well, I’m not sure why we’re talking about Schumacher now. We are here in 2025.

“I don’t understand. What you want to know?”

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner clarified that the question was “are you going to Mick Schumacher”.

Briatore replied: “Yeah. Sure. Everybody said that. I don’t think it’s the question to ask here, now. Next question.”

Pressed on the subject, Briatore said: “I don’t want to talk about that.”

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