Karun Chandhok has ‘heard’ that something worrying happened inside Alpine before Oliver Oakes left

Alpine is facing fresh turmoil after the shock resignation of team principal Oliver Oakes after just ten months at the helm.

The news came the night before Alpine confirmed that Franco Colapinto would replace Jack Doohan for the next five races, following months of speculation that the Australian would last only six races.

While it may seem like the decision for him to resign came as a result of a disagreement with the Doohan and Colapinto swap with executive advisor Flavio Briatore, Oakes cited personal reasons for stepping down at Alpine.

Briatore will take up the role Oakes had alongside his other duties, meaning Alpine has now had seven team prinicipals in the last five years.

Discussing what happened on the Sky Sports F1 podcast, former F1 driver Karun Chandhok revealed even more bad news about Alpine that could affect their race team in the short term.

Alpine keeps losing staff to rival team Cadillac

Alpine has lost a significant amount of senior staff over the years, most recently experienced sporting director Alan Permane, who joined Racing Bulls.

Chandhok says the team has been losing even more staff to rival team Cadillac, who have set up an operations base in the UK.

“Oli was bringing in a lot of his trusted lieutenants from Hitech, such as Dave Greenwood. But there has been a bit of a brain drain at Enstone,” said Chandhok.

“I heard they lost another five people to Cadillac from the race team and across the board from mechanics and things like that.”

Next year will see the F1 grid expand to 11 teams as Cadillac joins the grid, amid the 2026 rule changes, which will have a dramatic effect on the competitive order.

Alpine loses sixth team principal in five years

Oakes came into Alpine and promised more stability at the top of the team, but the latest raft of changes suggest anything but at the Enstone outfit.

Renault cut ties to its power unit factory in Viry-Chatillon at the end of last year, meaning Alpine will now be a customer team for 2026 instead of producing its own engines.

Oakes’ departure also means that Alpine has now had seven team principals in the last five years since Cyril Abiteboul left in 2020.

This is also not including the other high-level members of the team leaving, including Alain Prost, Pat Fry, technical director Matt Harmen and Dirk de Beer.