Alpine F1 boss Briatore: Paul Aron is nice but needs more experience
The Alpine F1 team announced on Friday that France's Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto of Argentina will continue as their main drivers next season. Estonia's Paul Aron misses out on a place in the team for 2026.
Gasly, who has earned 20 points this year, is the team's number one driver, while 22-year-old Colapinto earned his place after the sixth round of the season in Miami. However, the Argentinian driver has not yet managed to score any points, which had raised some questions about his future.
On Friday, however, Alpine confirmed that Colapinto will continue as the team's main driver next year.
"Unfortunately, we don't have such a well-performing car. It's difficult to drive. I believe in the beginning Franco was a little bit lost and he needed three or four races to be much better. If you saw Franco in the beginning when he started racing with us and you see him now, he's a different person," team boss Flavio Briatore told the official F1 website.
Estonian driver Paul Aron, who is a year younger than Colapinto, has represented Alpine in two free practice sessions this season. "We had not so many choices to change driver, to have a different driver," said Briatore.
"If you look at the panorama of the drivers, we have Aron. He's very nice but he's still very young, he still has another one year or two of experience in testing as reserve driver."
"We didn't see anything much better than what Franco is bringing to the team or what Pierre is bringing the team. Our partnership is super for next year and I promise you, our car will be much better than where we are right now," Briatore added.
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Editor: Anders Nõmm, Michael Cole
