It’s funny. In a world where Formula 1 has chased the reality TV bag so hard we’ve labelled an entire new generation of fan after its Netflix Magnum Opus, they don’t need Box Box Box Productions to tell their own story with some fancy B-Roll, they just need to search up all of Alpine’s stories on Autosport’s website instead, it’s better than the real thing.
Tuesday night into Wednesday morning had Team Enstone hit us with back-to-back team announcements. The first one was a genuine shock – Oliver Oakes resigning as Team Principal with immediate effect after just nine months on the job. With him gone and executive advisor Flavio Briatore taking on his duties at least in the interim, it makes him Alpine’s sixth team principal in the five years dating back to the pandemic, a staff rotation that only Watford football club could match.
Now this feels like the section where I’ve gotta do some dismissals. If Flavio’s statement is to be believed, and I see no good reason as to why he’d lie – there was no power struggle in the camp. Given we already knew that it was Flavio’s decision to shove Esteban Ocon out of the door at the end of 2024 to give Jack Doohan his GP debut, it’s hard to accuse Flavio of a coup when he was already making the big decisions. He made a power play for Carlos Sainz when he first got his job last year, but the Spaniard was already taking seat measurements at Grove by then. If Oakes was sincere about calling Flavio a father figure, then he was clearly at least content with the structure that was in place.
And as much as people want the arrest of William Oakes, (Oliver’s brother), and fellow director of his F2 team Hitech to be the big smoking gun, there just isn’t enough evidence to draw a firm conclusion on it. Yes, while it’s been reported that Oliver flew to Dubai after the Miami GP was over last weekend, we don’t know why. And there’s been no suggestion that Oliver is in any way involved with his brother’s alleged crime.
I think people are badly looking for a gotcha because one, it sounds straight out of the “Knives Out” franchise, and two, because it’s always going to be tough ignore the dodgy links to Russia that Hitech’s always had, despite the fact the Oakes’ have controlled three-quarters of the team since the Mazepin family were sanctioned during their countries conflict with Ukraine in 2022. Until we know more, there’s not enough to draw any firm conclusions, at least in this writer’s eyes.
Personally, I’m gutted that Oakes has gone. I had genuine faith in this hire because he wasn’t from F1’s usual merry-go-round of names that bounce from team-to-team. He was likeable, humble, he brought fresh ideas in, he actually gave a driver out of his academy a chance (we’ll get to that). Even with the freakish Brazil weekend, Alpine looked like they were genuinely back in a forward trajectory by the end of the season. Given last season started with an overweight car, two technical figureheads walking in Harmon and de Beer, and Ocon’s relationship with the team in tatters… that could have been far worse.
And that leads into the other, not-so-surprising story of the week, and that’s Jack Doohan’s demotion to reserve driver again, as Franco Colapinto will be driving for Alpine for at least the next five races.
This one felt inevitable. I was always slightly concerned as to why Alpine felt like it had to tie down Jack Doohan in August. The driver market was poised in such a way that after Carlos Sainz was confirmed at Williams, there wasn’t a huge “chase” for teams to make. Alpine had drivers in their own camp, like Mick Schumacher as well as the aforementioned Doohan. It could have waited until the end of the year, after the Ocon exit, to evaluate Doohan partially off that Abu Dhabi weekend, or waited for Sergio Perez to hit the market in December, rather than be talking to him now for a 2026 seat. What was the hurry here?
Doohan seemed doomed to fail from the start. He was walking into a team that had a talismanic lead driver in Pierre Gasly, a race winner and someone who put down some strong drives at the end of 2024. Franco Colapinto was brought in as a reserve on a suspiciously large five-year contract. His camp, including state funding from Argentina’s national oil supplier, made a strategic partnership with Alpine’s energy supplier Eni. And the big one, the story that never went away – that Doohan had five races to prove himself or else he’d shown the door.
This was barely a fortnight after The Race reported that Doohan had won some people over in the Alpine camp and had the seat tied down until the summer break. Given the reverse swing in the media that Freddie Flintoff would have been proud of, what happened here? It’s why I understand why some people had the deeper rooted conspiracy talk.
For me, it’s a lot simpler than that. In the 9-race cameo he made for Williams, Franco Colapinto impressed people. He adapted to the Williams quickly, scored points in his second and fourth starts for them, and by the Winter, he had people questioning just how good Albon had been in the team given his only yardstick for a year and a half was Logan Sargeant, who ultimately proved he wasn’t at that level. Yes, Colapinto had his fair share of crashes too, but in the same way my peers gushed over Kimi Antonelli before his own debut in Monza, the speed was intoxicating.
Jack Doohan, just wasn’t that in his seven races with Alpine. Despite his reported exemplemary attitude towards dealing with an incredibly uncomfortable climate at Enstone, the results just weren’t there, and a couple of high profile crashes at home in Melbourne and again in Japan. I don’t think Jack ever really convinced people he was the real deal. Especially in the freakish climate of a six rookie field, and A+ prospects in Kimi Antonelli and Ollie Bearman immediately holding their value.
And it’s not like Flavio Briatore’s even been afraid of making the bold call. This is the same Flavio that only months prior decided to cull Alpine’s status as a factory to take on Mercedes power and gearboxes, putting hundreds of jobs at risk in the process. Relatively speaking, a pretty-straight forward driver decision is chump change. And a well-backed, exciting young talent with a huge South American following was always going to be hard to resist, even if the way they got there was a total mess.
But all of this still doesn’t avoid the bubblegum coloured elephant in the room. At least in the interim.. Flavio is back. Now 75 and a bit rougher around the edges, lest we forget that this was the man who committed the sport’s ultimate crime 17 years ago in fixing a race. He dodged a lifetime ban to worm his way back into the paddock to regain influence, and now, he’s at the head of the table again. All the hellfire and brimstone that came with “#F1xed” and the worst of what Michael Masi was accused of doing at Abu Dhabi 2021, Flavio undisputedly did. And yet, here we are…
For F1’s messiest team, they desperately need a leader for their rudderless ship. Like Tottenham or Manchester United, they’re clubs that need to back someone and give them the security to put their own footprint and identity back on Enstone. After their salvage job in 2024, they’re right back where they started again. Sitting ninth in the Constructors with an unstable and inexperienced driver lineup, questioning management, a car that shows flashes of potential from a solid chassis but still badly lacks power, and an even more competitive midfield that has Williams and Haas blowing them away at time of writing.
This isn’t including the toxicity of Flavio at the home, the engine department being written off, the lowkey PR disaster of scaling back your attempts at diversifying the brand via your talent academy, the fact you’ve already sold off a quarter of the team and the embarrassment of realising that in the time it’s taken McLaren, their former rival to go from pretenders to Champions, Alpine’s thrown away a whole team’s worth of key talent:
Fernando Alonso, Esteban Ocon, Oscar Piastri, Bob Bell, Bruno Famin, Victor Martins, Otmar Szefnauer, Marcin Budkowski, Pat Fry, Alain Prost, Oliver Oakes, Alan Permane, Cyril Abiteboul, Matt Harman, Dirk De Beer, Davide Brivio
…If I wanted to build an F1 team tomorrow, and that was the pool of talent avaliable, I don’t think I’d be last on the grid. Alpine is one point away from being in that position.
It’s time to shut up and admit you need a rebuild. Quit the bullshit about 100-race plans, or long-term goals, or acting like the room isn’t laughing at you. Start over or sell up and let someone else take on that burden. Because at the moment, Alpine is a joke. And we’re not laughing anymore.
