Aron to drive Colapinto’s car in first practice, Dunne returns for McLaren

Alpine will give Paul Aron his first opportunity to appear in a practice session in their car this weekend, taking over from Franco Colapinto.

He is one of two rookie drivers who will have the chance to participate in practice this weekend. Formula 2 racer Alex Dunne will return to drive for McLaren, taking the place of world championship leader Oscar Piastri in the opening hour on Friday.

Alpine has previously placed its junior driver Aron at Sauber, where he took part in practice at the British and Hungarian grands prix.

Aron is already familiar with Alpine’s car having driven it in test sessions earlier this year. He and Colapinto took turns driving at the Hungaroring in a test for Pirelli last month.

Colapinto replaced Jack Doohan at Alpine after the sixth round of the season in Miami. He is yet to score a point for the team but managed his best result since his return last weekend at Zandvoort, where he came 11th.

Dunne previously appeared for McLaren at the Austrian Grand Prix where he took over Lando Norris’s car. He impressed on his first appearance in an official F1 practice session, setting the fourth-fastest time and lapping within a tenth of a second of Piastri.

The McLaren junior driver is fifth in the F2 standings with eight races remaining, 30 points off leader Leonardo Fornaroli. Dunne has won twice this year but was also stripped of victory in the feature race at Spa-Francorchamps after failing to engage his car’s start set-up procedure correctly on the formation lap.

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Piastri arrives at Monza having increased his championship lead over team mate Norris to 34 points, the highest it has been all season. He has scored seven wins so far this year to Norris’s five.

Each F1 team must run a driver who has started no more than two grands prix in a first practice session in each of its cars twice over the course of 2025. McLaren previously announced its IndyCar driver Pato O’Ward will take one of the opportunities at Mexico City.

F1 teams’ practice driver arrangements in 2025

NB. Jack Doohan drove in the first two first practice sessions of the season for Alpine before he had started more than two grands prix and could therefore have qualified to count as a junior driver. However the team chose not to nominate him as such a driver for these two appearances. Felipe Drugovich replaced Fernando Alonso for first practice at the Hungarian Grand Prix but this change occured too late for him to be nominated.

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