This quality convinced Alpine to offer Colapinto a new contract

Flavio Briatore values the maturity shown by Franco Colapinto at Alpine.

During the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Alpine announced the contract extension of Colapinto for the 2026 season.

The young Argentine driver joined the French team as a reserve driver ahead of the current campaign. He then replaced Jack Doohan, starting from the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Talking to F1.com, Briatore explained how much Colapinto has changed over the past months. Alpine's Executive Advisor commented: "I have spent a lot of time with Franco and I have seen a change in him, the maturity in the last few months has changed completely. He's talking with me like a different guy, with more responsibility."

The Italian continued: "He understands what he is doing with the team, with the engineering. He has really surprised me. In the beginning, I had a lot of people in the team who were not convinced about Franco's performance."

Colapinto at this year's Brazil GP - Photo: Race Pictures

Briatore trusts 'Gasly and Colapinto line-up'

During the Italian Grand Prix, it was announced that Pierre Gasly had committed his long-term future to the team.

Briatore explained he has a "super" partnership for the upcoming season, which also brings stability to the Enstone-based squad.

He added: "We had not so many choices to change driver, to have a different driver.

"If you look at the panorama of the drivers, we have [Paul] 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."

The Sao Paulo Grand Prix turned out to be a positive one for the French squad, as Gasly scored points for the first time since the Belgian GP. The Frenchman finished eighth in the Sprint and 10th in the race.

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