Over the last few days, Red Bull’s Liam Lawson and VCARB’s Yuki Tsunoda have taken centre stage. A swap between these drivers appears increasingly likely, with the Milton Keynes outfit working to find solutions to Lawson’s nightmare start to 2025.
However, Franco Colapinto has now re-emerged as a key player in the driver market.
The Alpine reserve driver, widely expected to replace Doohan mid-season only a few week ago, is reportedly under consideration at VCARB.
It has now emerged that Red Bull’s Helmut Marko was in Alpine’s hospitality at the Chinese GP – validating suggestions that Colapinto is on their radar.
Why Colapinto is on Red Bull’s radar
In theory, two difficult races to start a season with a new team should not warrant the intensity of discussion and uncertainty of the last 48 hours.
Of course, Liam Lawson’s situation is unique. His performances in Australia and China are not comparable to that of previous Red Bull drivers – and not for the right reasons.
Although Red Bull might have ordinarily wanted to give Lawson time to acclimatise, the gap between the Kiwi and Verstappen is too big to ignore.
Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 19, United States Grand Prix, Sunday 20th October 2024. Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas, USA.
At this stage, the 23-year-old is nowhere near fighting for points.
Whilst the last two races are not necessarily representative of his abilities, Christian Horner’s team must be realistic about whether Lawson can deliver this season.
Prior to signing Liam Lawson last season, Red Bull also showed interest in Franco Colapinto.
The Austrian outfit were still evaluating their two options at VCARB, and saw the Argentine as an interesting prospect to evaluate.
It must be remembered that Red Bull’s initial decision to put Lawson into an F1 car only happened by chance – when Daniel Ricciardo crashed in Zandvoort.
Prior to this, they opted to put De Vries and then Ricciardo in their second team.
This is only worth mentioning because, in what is becoming an increasingly consistent trend, Red Bull’s promotion Lawson in 2024 was a marriage of convenience – rather than something they had planned several years prior.
In this context, it was hardly a surprise they were evaluating Franco Colapinto last year.
Marko has already spoken with Alpine
Although new reports that Colapinto is in the mix for a VCARB seat are somewhat unexpected, tracing a few steps backwards contextualises the teams’ renewed consideration for the youngster.
Indeed, Motorsport have reported that Helmut Marko was at the Alpine hospitality last Sunday.
Considering that Colapinto is currently an Alpine reserve driver, it seems logical the Argentine was the subject of his visit.
Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 17, Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Friday 13th September 2024. Baku City Circuit, Azerbaijan.
Heading into this season, the general expectation was that Colapinto might join Alpine mid-season.
He signed a multi-year deal with the French squad in January, cementing himself as part of their long-term plans.
Despite this, Jack Doohan’s solid start to 2025 would have made it awkward (though this hasn’t stopped Alpine before) for Flavio Briatore to push for a mid-season swap.
Of course, Alpine are unlikely to let Colapinto join VCARB on a permanent basis, at least initially.
Any short-term agreement between the 21-year-old and VCARB would be a form of loan deal.
From this starting point, both Red Bull and Alpine could assess Colapinto’s performance throughout 2025.
To be clear, this scenario requires several steps to be brought into fruition.
Still, the possibility of Colapinto joining the Faenza team (in the event Tsunoda joins Red Bull) cannot be dismissed.
Nothing is certain at this stage in terms of Red Bull’s driver line-up, and movement seems almost inevitable.
