Manager tells Colapinto fans to ease Doohan heat

Mar.10 (GMM) Franco Colapinto’s manager has called for calm amid raging speculation heading into the 2025 season.

Alpine advisor Flavio Briatore has made no secret recently that, now with Colapinto on lucrative loan from Williams, the Argentine could replace rookie Jack Doohan sooner rather than later.

“If you have two drivers, choose between two,” said the flamboyant Italian. “If you have five drivers, choose between five.”

Team boss Oliver Oakes is also not denying that Doohan’s race seat could be in danger, although he did recently criticise “keyboard warriors” who have been ramping the story up.

“I think he should be given a bit of space just to get on with it for a few rounds,” Oakes is quoted as saying by Melbourne’s Age newspaper.

“And then at the end of the day, like any driver, you’ve got to deliver. Whether it’s nice or kind to Jack, he’s driving a Formula 1 car. That’s every boy’s dream, but it’s also his job.

“For me, that’s pretty simple.”

It’s also ‘simple’ in the minds of scores of Colapinto’s Argentine supporters, who are feverishly criticising Doohan on social media.

“To the haters who think they help Franco,” Colapinto’s manager Jamie Campbell-Walter posted, “you are doing him more harm than good.”

He slammed the “insults to the team, to Jack and sometimes to other supporters of Alpine”, and insisted that the Colapinto camp is not adding to the climate.

“Franco and all of us who support him are fans of the whole team, Pierre (Gasly) and Jack,” said Campbell-Walter. “Conduct yourselves with passion but not abuse and arrogance.

“Franco’s time will come but not like this – you will achieve the opposite.”

However, former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher thinks it is obvious that Colapinto, 21, is shaping up to snatch Doohan’s race seat before too long.

“I know Flavio,” he told Sky Deutschland. “If the boy (Doohan) doesn’t perform – and he wasn’t that strong in the test either, from what we hear – then it will be over pretty quickly.”

Schumacher thinks the axe could even fall on Doohan “as soon as Australia”.

As for Colapinto, the German said he “already knows most of the tracks, he has a good sponsor, and he also brings his speed. However, he also has to find some fully comprehensive insurance,” Schumacher joked, referring to Colapinto’s spate of crashes late last season for Williams.

Also possible, Schumacher added, is that Doohan actually performs very well in Melbourne this weekend.

“If he comes to Melbourne and drives Pierre Gasly into the ground, then of course he can become a superstar. But it doesn’t look like that at the moment.”