{"id":26747,"date":"2024-11-13T08:41:50","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T13:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=26747"},"modified":"2024-11-13T08:44:37","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T13:44:37","slug":"f1-news-colapinto-interest-persists-despite-20-million-price-tag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/11\/13\/f1-news-colapinto-interest-persists-despite-20-million-price-tag\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 News: Colapinto interest persists despite $20 million price tag"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Williams are likely to spend the rest of 2024 negotiating with rival teams about their interest Franco Colapinto. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/11\/13\/f1-news-red-bulls-internal-dispute-over-2025-driver-line-up\/\" target=\"_self\">Red Bull<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/11\/07\/f1-news-alpine-enter-the-race-for-franco-colapinto\/\" target=\"_self\">Alpine<\/a> have already enquired about the 21-year-old&#8217;s availability, with talks advanced taking place in the background. Both teams are aware that the price for Colapinto is high.<\/p>\n<h2>Colapinto talks: Williams hold the cards<\/h2>\n<p>It is easy to get carried away by the possibilities that are in front of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/11\/10\/franco-colapinto-2025-seat-very-likely-reveal-his-management\/\" target=\"_self\">Franco Colapinto<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Argentine is now a legitimate target for Red Bull, the reigning champions, who have been in discussions with Williams for some time.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/10\/30\/christian-horner-confirms-red-bull-interest-in-franco-colapinto\/\" target=\"_self\">Christian Horner<\/a> is understood to be particularly enthusiastic about Colapinto, with the Red Bull team principal considering him a potential future teammate for Max Verstappen.<\/p>\n<p>Alpine are also in the mix, with the Enstone squad eager to strengthen their driver line-up ahead of 2026.<\/p>\n<p>However, there is still a long way to go before any agreement can be finalised.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/11\/03\/franco-colapinto-receives-growing-interest-from-red-bull\/\" target=\"_self\">Colapinto<\/a> still has a multi-year contract with Williams, meaning the Grove-based team are ultimately in control of contract negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>The British team&#8217;s preference would be to get their star driver a seat on the 2025 grid &#8211; whilst also ensuring he is still contracted to them in the long-term. In essence, a loan deal could be the best of both worlds.<\/p>\n<p>This is obviously not Red Bull&#8217;s preferred scenario, since Colapinto would eventually return to Williams.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"OAGr_s8ESZNOhxZh2CB3dA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2172104556\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'OAGr_s8ESZNOhxZh2CB3dA',sig:'pVQGvq8BhTwfhwk_KRws47GBJj1fldwhuvXwH6QZhnI=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2172104556',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Red Bull and Alpine still chasing a deal<\/h3>\n<p>To sign Franco Colapinto on a more permanent basis, teams must offer <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/11\/03\/f1-news-williams-in-crisis-as-crash-damages-accumulate\/\" target=\"_self\">Williams<\/a> a large financial package to prematurely terminate his existing contract.<\/p>\n<p>A figure of $20 million is being reported as the necessary fee to prematurely end the British team&#8217;s existing agreement.<\/p>\n<p>On paper, this is a sizable obstacle in securing the 21-year-old&#8217;s services. However, Red Bull and Alpine are showing no signs of abandoning their pursuits of Colapinto&#8217;s signature because of this fee.<\/p>\n<p>Considering the commercial impact the Argentine is producing in just a handful of races, it is understandable that negotiations are still ongoing behind the scenes.<\/p>\n<p>Given that\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/11\/12\/sergio-perez-sponsors-could-help-secure-2025-red-bull-seat\/\" target=\"_self\">Red Bull&#8217;s<\/a> annual spending is substantially less than what it was before the budget cap (which excludes driver salaries), money is not a limiting factor.<\/p>\n<p>Because of this, paying a one-off sum for a star driver is hardly a deterrent. The same can be said for Alpine, who certainly aren&#8217;t lightweights from a financial perspective.<\/p>\n<p>At least for the foreseeable future, Flavio Briatore and Christian Horner will be hard at work behind the scenes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Williams are likely to spend the rest of 2024 negotiating with rival teams about their interest Franco Colapinto. Red Bull and Alpine have already enquired about the 21-year-old&#8217;s availability, with talks advanced taking place in the background. Both teams are aware that the price for Colapinto is high. Colapinto talks: Williams hold the cards It [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":26609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,915,94],"class_list":["post-26747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-james-vowles","tag-williams"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}