One thing about Alpine’s movements over the past 24 hours was wholly expected; the other was not.
Promoting Franco Colapinto to the racing line-up at the expense of Jack Doohan was forecast not only in the past few days, but before a wheel was even turned this season; signing the loquacious Argentine was seen to put pressure on Doohan to perform. Doohan was thus thrust into the unenviable position of having to bat off questions about his future before he’d even taken part in the season opener.
The departure of Oliver Oakes was not foreseen, however. Just over the weekend, Oakes had to be on hand to smooth out the rekindled rumours that Colapinto was due to replace Doohan in the short-term – but now, both have walked out of the door.
Coincidence? It hardly seemed that way; the common belief in the wake of Oakes’ resignation was that he wanted to give Doohan a chance to capture his first points in Formula 1, while Briatore wanted Colapinto in the car. He had, after all, concluded deals with the Argentine sponsors that had accrued significant interest in the country’s first F1 driver since Gaston Mazzacane when Colapinto drove for Williams last year. Ultimately, it was only a matter of time before Briatore got his way – and this was presumably seen by Oakes as the Italian outstepping his jurisdiction.
Perhaps Oakes felt that he should be responsible for the fortunes of the race team, and that executive adviser Flavio Briatore should be responsible for dealing with the commercial matters. After all, this is a set-up that works well at McLaren, where Zak Brown and Andrea Stella have clear and defined roles in the management of the team – Brown handles the business and commercial aspects, while Stella looks after the F1 team’s factory operations and race team. Brown does have significant input in which drivers the team runs, but not without Stella’s say-so.
Andrea Stella, McLaren, Zak Brown, McLaren
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
As such, the dynamic became clear (if it wasn’t before): Briatore called the shots, Oakes had the unenviable task of justifying the decisions on his behalf.
Briatore, as was his wont, denies that this was the case. In a statement released on Instagram (the perfect place to do it, apparently), Briatore stated that the idea that a disagreement between he and Oakes was “completely false and far from the truth”.
“Me and Oli have a very good relationship and had long-term ambitions to drive this team forward together. We respect Oli’s request to resign and have therefore accepted his resignation. The reasons are not related to the team and are of a personal nature.”
He also included a statement from Oakes himself, which read: “It is a personal decision for me to step down. Flavio has been like a father to me, nothing but supportive since I took the role, as well as giving me the opportunity.
“Everyone is in place for 2026 and where this dream deserves to be. I believe in Enstone.”
Suppose we take that at face value for a moment, because it’s only fair to cover all points of view in a situation where the truth is unclear. What we know is that Oakes has a young family, something he could more realistically manage with his role at Hitech; after all, travelling to 12-14 rounds per year in the F2/F3 calendar (and seconding the running of the F1 Academy and GB3/GB4 outfits to other management) does not levy anything close to the strain of covering 24 rounds as an F1 team principal.
Oliver Oakes, Alpine
Photo by: Peter Fox / Getty Images
Perhaps that was part of Oakes’ considerations. But it would be foolish to assume that the coincident timing of the Doohan/Colapinto switch and Oakes’ resignation is just that: mere coincidence. Perhaps there was a sense that he couldn’t realistically carry out the vision he had for the team, and perhaps he felt the risk of being drawn into the F1 magnetar wasn’t worth it. If a combination of those things is the case, then all one can do is applaud his decision.
But the situation as it is forces yet another rethink. Ever since Renault repurchased an Enstone team that was circling the drain in its final days as Lotus, anything resembling continuity has been notional at best. Fred Vasseur was installed as team principal for the Renault re-rebrand, which lasted about a year before the Frenchman resigned after disagreements with managing director Cyril Abiteboul about the direction of the team.
Abiteboul took over the team principal duties and lasted until the end of 2020, when a subsequent revolving door of managerial types soon spooled up. Marcin Budkowski, Otmar Szafnauer, Bruno Famin, and now Oakes have been and gone. Since Abiteboul left, the average managerial tenure for an Alpine team principal has spanned around 390 days. It’s perhaps fitting that Oakes resigned from his role on the same day that sackaholic football club Watford dispensed with its services of manager Tom Cleverley…
And that’s just the team principal-ship; Alpine appears to be in a perpetual state of transition, and the turnover of technical staff seems to be reflective of those at the top of the tree. Just as Oakes looked to have steadied the ship, particularly as 2024 ended strongly thanks to David Sanchez’s hand on the tiller on a technical front, his resignation instead throws a yet another spanner in the works.
Flavio Briatore, Alpine F1 looks on during the F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
What’s unclear is if Briatore’s assumption of the team management mantle remains temporary. If it is, then it’s on him to find a successor that he is aligned with (not that Oakes wasn’t – again taking their combined statements at face value) and whom he feels will stop the cycle of hire, fire, and perspire.
There are figures internally who have the experience to handle a promotion; the likes of Dave Greenwood and Ciaran Pilbeam have graced pitwalls for a long time, and would be logical successors; otherwise, perhaps finding someone externally with the desire to step up into a team principal role (take Jonathan Wheatley at Sauber, for example) would be the way to go.
But it’s not like football where there’s a cast of jobbing management types who can come in, steer the ship for six months, and then accept a hefty payout after a less-than-prosperous season; managing an entire F1 team is a highly specialised role.
And even before Alpine reaches that point, it needs to define what it – as an entity – stands for. As of 2026, it’ll no longer be a manufacturer team; weirdly, it’ll be a Mercedes customer team owned by Groupe Renault. Is it just another customer team on the grid? Will it remain as a team designed to serve as a promotional entity for Alpine Cars? Or can at least a majority stake be sold to someone who has a genuine vision of where they’d like to take the team – and with a clear view of the role it can serve F1?
Alternatively, the outfit just carries on in its own peculiar way: staff come and go, it continues to operate in the midfield pack, and drivers spend a maximum of two or three years there before relocating to less volatile climes on the grid.
Alpine has a precipitous climb to make, should it want to be anything else.
