F1 commentator Nelson Valkenburg reckons Pierre Gasly is starting to feel the heat at Alpine, with Franco Colapinto turning heads with his recent performances.
Alpine have turned things around this season, building off their switch to Mercedes power units for 2026. It’s a far cry from last year when they finished dead last in the constructors’ standings.
Colapinto, who spent all of 2025 without a single point to his name, has already put together two points finishes this year and is drawing plenty of positive attention around the paddock.
Colapinto’s impressive pace in Canada leaves Gasly looking over his shoulder
Speaking on a recent episode of the Nailing the Apex podcast, Tim Hauraney and Nelson Valkenburg took a closer look at how things are shaping up at Alpine after Colapinto’s standout showing in Montreal.
“If you look at the job that Colapinto has been doing over the last two weekends, he was great in Miami, but he was arguably better in Montreal,” Valkenburg said. “He had no practice, they sent him out on hard tyres in the cold.
“After his first pit stop, he had a massive moment where he actually hit the wall. But that’s the only moment he had all weekend. He completely outpaced Gasly without practice.”
Briatore explained that Alpine plans to wait for more clarity around Mercedes’ interest in Max Verstappen before finalising their driver lineup for 2027.
While some saw this as a sign that Colapinto’s seat could be at risk, Valkenburg believes it might actually be Gasly feeling more pressure based on his team radio exchanges during the Canadian Grand Prix.
“On the face of it, if you say, ‘Alpine is just going to wait until they lock in their driver lineup,’ you’d say, ‘Well, they’re going to wait until they find someone better to replace Colapinto’,” he added.
“I don’t think it’s that easy at this point. I don’t think Colapinto is a sure thing to be a second driver, compared to Gasly. And Gasly is starting to feel that.
“If you listen to his onboard radio in the last 15 laps of the Grand Prix last weekend, you can feel the pressure, you can feel the dismay there. Let’s just wait and see, because I know for certain that Colapinto is loving this new dynamic since he got the new chassis.”
Towards the end of Sunday’s race weekend in Montreal, Gasly was heard asking his engineer multiple times if he was keeping up with Franco’s pace near the end of what turned into an extended Grand Prix due to late rain.
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