Alpine are now on their seventh team principal in five years following the sudden exit of Oliver Oakes after six races in 2025.
Oakes had joined the team midway through the 2024 season after a restructuring, which saw ex-boss Bruno Famin reshuffled to help with the migration of engineers from Alpine’s Viry Chatillon plant to their new Hypertech Alpine division.
It follows a tumultuous period for the French outfit, after Alpine pulled the plug on their 2026 engine development, citing rising costs, and have recently replaced Jack Doohan with Franco Colapinto.
Their results on track have hardly masked the ongoings in the background as well, with Alpine currently ninth in the Constructors’ Championship.
Flavio Briatore is set to take over Oakes’ position as team principal alongside his role as executive advisor, but it feels more like an interim solution to a problem they face with the day-to-day running of the team.
Mike Krack could be ideal replacement after being ‘disappointed’ with Aston Martin demotion
Considering Briatore is now past retirement age at 75 years old, he’s unlikely to be interested in some of the more mundane tasks associated with being team principal. They have to look after payrolls and general expenses within the business, alongside being the face of it all in interviews with the media.
It’s a fairly niche role within the world of F1, but Alpine could look towards a rival team for a potential hire. A recent reshuffle at Aston Martin has seen Mike Krack take a step back as team principal to make way for Andy Cowell, who was promoted to CEO of the team.
Krack now takes on a trackside role at races, but he was unhappy with the change, according to journalist Lawrence Barretto, speaking on the F1 Nation podcast.
“When you threw out Mike Krack’s name, I thought that might be a great solution because he’s potentially a bit disappointed with the way things are going at Aston Martin since he’s been effectively demoted,” said Barretto.
“He likes being out of the limelight, but he likes this hybrid role where he can run the day-to-day business of running the team, but let Flavio take the limelight and make the bigger decisions.”
Mike Krack fits Alpine’s current situation after years of disappointing results
When Krack came into Aston Martin, he oversaw their rise from being in the midfield to consistently finishing on the podium.
During the 2023 season, Fernando Alonso finished on the podium at eight races amid Red Bull’s dominance. Alpine have seen a mix of results over the years and have not won a championship since 2006, with much of the last few seasons let down by broken promises.
Under team principal Laurent Rossi, the team had a “100 race plan” to get themselves back to winning races regularly, but so far they have gone backwards.
Krack has experience having started off in F1 as an engineer at BMW Sauber and later working at Porsche, where he oversaw their victories in the World Endurance Championship.
He knows what it takes to turn a team into a race-winning entity and that might be the first step Alpine has to take, before they think about winning titles again.
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