Pierre Gasly has arrived at Imola to find the Alpine F1 team looking very different. There’s a new leadership regime and a new face on the other side of the garage.
After the Miami GP, Alpine announced that Franco Colapinto would replace Jack Doohan. Doohan had completed just a quarter of the season, and his successor has only signed a five-race deal.
Gasly is used to in-season driver changes, having been demoted from Red Bull back to Toro Rosso in 2019. His F1 debut came about late in the 2017 season when the junior squad reshuffled their line-up.
The Frenchman has also witnessed significant off-track upheaval since he joined Alpine. Otmar Szafnauer was the team boss when he joined, but he was gone by the summer of his first season as Bruno Famin took over.
| TEAM PRINCIPAL | JOINED | LEFT |
| None | January 2021 | January 2022 |
| Otmar Szafnauer | January 2022 | July 2023 |
| Bruno Famin | July 2023 | August 2024 |
| Oliver Oakes | August 2024 | May 2025 |
Famin was redeployed a year later, but Oliver Oakes’ tenure was even shorter. Now Flavio Briatore, an advisor to Renault CEO Luca de Meo, has seen his responsibilities increase, with the team yet to name a new team principal.
Pierre Gasly insists there’s ‘no trouble’ at Alpine – F1 fans disagree
Speaking to Motorsport Week before the race in Imola, Gasly insisted the environment at Alpine was stable and united. The team may point out that Liam Lawson lost his seat at Red Bull much earlier than Doohan, who hadn’t scored a point.
Gasly’s priority will be improving his own results. While he’s consistently been the team’s lead driver, he’s only finished in the points twice in eight events so far.
“There is no trouble within the team, there is no disagreement between anyone in the team,” he said. “The vision and the directions always remain the same as they were before Miami and after Miami.”
Over on Reddit, F1 fans expressed skepticism about these remarks. Particularly cutting responses included ‘blink twice if you are OK’ and ‘did he blink anything in Morse code?’.
“Yeah, he’s the epitome of the dog sipping his coffee while Alpine burns around him,” another said, in reference to the popular meme.
The suspicion is that Alpine have ‘heavily briefed’ Gasly in the lead-up to the race after plenty of negative publicity.
“Man employed by billion-dollar team says only good things about said billion-dollar team, shocked I tell you,” was one user’s verdict.
“The answer of a man who has been heavily briefed by the Alpine communications team on how to answer these questions,” a fellow fan agreed.
As the table above shows, Alpine cycled through four different regimes in less than five years.
“From what I’ve seen, there has been trouble at Alpine/Renault for as long as I can remember,” a final comment read.
Franco Colapinto deserves credit for what he just said about Jack Doohan at Imola
As the senior driver in the team, the media were eager to hear Gasly’s thoughts on the recent chaos. He’s done what he can to calm the waters.
When the race weekend begins, most of the attention will fall upon Colapinto. The nature of his contract means this can’t be written off as a learning period.
Hitting the right notes in his own media appearances, Colapinto sent a classy message to Doohan. He said it was a ‘shame’ that he’s returned to F1 at the expense of a ‘really good guy’.
Ralf Schumacher has called for Briatore to be more open about his intentions. The Sky Germany pundit told the F1 veteran to admit that he’s ready to rotate his drivers to establish the best option for 2026.
