Alpine backs Colapinto after Clarkson's on-air penalty joke

Alpine has publicly backed Franco Colapinto after Jeremy Clarkson joked during a live Sky Sports F1 broadcast that the driver had received a grid penalty for being Argentinian.

Alpine said it was aware of remarks by a team guest during a television interview in Austin and declared its support for Colapinto. The statement did not name Clarkson, but followed his comments ahead of qualifying for the United States Grand Prix.

Clarkson was at the United States Grand Prix weekend as an Alpine guest and appeared live on Sky Sports F1 from the Circuit of the Americas before qualifying. He referred to Top Gear's 2014 trip to Patagonia. Protests broke out during the trip, and the crew was pelted with stones after Clarkson drove a Porsche 928 carrying the number plate H982 FKL; Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond fled the country. Locals believed the plate referred to the 1982 Falklands War. Clarkson and the Top Gear crew have maintained that the number plate was a coincidence and denied it was chosen deliberately.

Colapinto's actual 10-place grid penalty in Austin was for receiving his fourth new control electronics unit of the 2026 season, not for his nationality.