Colapinto vs Doohan: Has Alpine\u2019s switch paid off?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nDoohan on the other hand, has several personnel changes in his own garage within his six-race stint, which anyone at any level of the sport, will tell you is far from ideal.<\/p>\n
In a sport where opportunities are rare and careers are made or broken in moments, Doohan was given less than a quarter of a season before being benched.<\/p>\n
For a little perspective, there are many drivers who have had more than 30 F1 starts without scoring a point, including Italian Luca Badoer who had 50.<\/p>\n
As an extension of that, Nico Hulkenburg made his F1 debut in 2010, but never collected a podium appearance until this year\u2019s British Grand Prix \u2013 239 starts later!<\/p>\n
The message to young drivers couldn\u2019t be clearer from this Alpine mess: talent isn\u2019t enough when politics and cash run the show.<\/p>\n
Now, I can hear many of you saying, \u201cbut that\u2019s the way it has always been\u201d and no doubt there have been plenty of questionable deals in the past, but this drama has dragged the sport back years.<\/p>\n
And that brings us to Briatore, the man orchestrating this chaos. Officially, he\u2019s Alpine\u2019s executive advisor. Unofficially, he\u2019s the de facto team boss, making the calls and shaping the narrative.<\/p>\n
There is no doubt that Briatore has made some amazing moves with drivers in the past when you consider Michael Schumacher at Benetton and Fernando Alonso at Renault, but he also comes with piles of baggage \u2013 Crashgate anyone?<\/p>\n
It is a tough business and patience and persistence are the two primary ingredients you need to survive. The last thing you need is people, seemingly in your own camp, making it more difficult.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t forget that Doohan is a product of Alpine junior driver development program, which makes all this even harder to digest . What is the point of such a program if a talented and loyal driver who has produced the goods and proven his worth in the F2 and F3 ranks simply becomes a pawn in the end game?<\/p>\n
While this has all been unfolding, Renault\u2019s once-proud heritage is seemingly being dragged south by the day.<\/p>\n
In a month where Aston Martin reportedly sold its 4.6 percent stake in Lawrence Stroll\u2019s F1 team for $US146 million, valuing the team at more than $US3 billion, you have to wonder how much the value of the Renault squad has fallen during this saga?<\/p>\n
Renault\u2019s F1 heritage once stood for engineering excellence and fierce competition. The recent performance of the team could be described as nothing less than second rate.<\/p>\n
Doohan deserved better. Alpine\u2019s fans deserved better. Formula 1 deserved better, but heading into the summer break you have to wonder if we have even seen the end of this disaster.<\/p>\n
Alpine seemingly took the cash and were hoping like hell that Colapinto would produce at least something a tick better than Doohan, so the move could be justified.<\/p>\n
The truth is that it has been a disaster and has been embarrassing for all the stakeholders and damaged the career of a young talent who has been diplomatic through the entire process hoping that some sort of common sense will prevail.<\/p>\n
And before all the crazed\/passionate Argentinian fans get on their keyboards, let me make this clear \u2013 this is not a Colapinto bashing, it is just simply bringing to light what has been a shameful situation for a sport that has grown in so many areas in recent years.<\/p>\n
It is time for this whole deal to be set right and for the team to be true to their word about their rotation system and save some face by putting Doohan back in the car when the season resumes with the Dutch Grand Prix on August 29-31.<\/p>\n
Surely, someone at Renault is asking a question?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jack Doohan was dumped early in the season. Image: XPB Images Formula 1 has always been a barrel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4289,4199,707,4200,4292,4291,117381,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-325290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-alpine","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-franco-colapinto","13":"tag-jack-doohan","14":"tag-slot2","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114987726559185013","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"OPINION:](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/XPB_1359196_HiRes.jpg\")