F1
Oliver Oakes resigns fromAlpine, Flavio Briatore at the helm
© Eric Alonso / DPPI
A big announcement was expected at Alpine : the one formalizing Jack Doohan's departure in favor of Franco Colapinto. However, it wasn't this news that the team shared on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, but that of Oliver Oakes' departure from his position as director. Flavio Briatore will immediately take over his duties for an indefinite period.
The content of the official press release fromAlpine F1 Team
The announcement has the effect of a small earthquake after only six Grand Prix contested in 2025. But the results of this start of the season are so bad for Alpine (9th in the Constructors' standings with 7 points) that this resignation looks like an amicable exit. The thanks suggest so...
The Englishman, very discreet in the paddock, therefore adds his name to the hasty departures before him of Frédéric Vasseur, Cyril Abiteboul, Laurent Rossi, Otmar Szafnauer and Bruno Famin in the space of a few seasons.
In fact, this "resignation" does not change much in the team's decision-making mechanism. Alpine, Flavio Briatore already having all the powers under the authority of the group's general director Renault, Luca De Meo. Rehabilitated in 2024 after the infamous Singapore "crashgate" episode in 2008, the Italian's mission is to get the team back on trackenstone on the road to success. Success already experienced under his management in 1994 and 1995 under the name Benetton with Michael Schumacher, then in 2005 and 2006 with Renault and Fernando Alonso.
Oliver Oakes' departure, 48 hours after the Miami Grand Prix, allows the official narrative to give full power back to Flavio Briatore... which was already the case, Oliver Oakes never having the influence or authority that his position supposed. But everything once again brings us back to the Englishman's record: promoted in July 2024, the team was then on the road to recovery, until it achieved a superb double podium in Brazil and climbed to 6th place in the Constructors' Championship. By the end of 2024, no other team had turned things around as much during the season. But since then, it has been an absolute disaster and the momentum, initiated in late 2023-early 2024 by Bruno Famin, has been broken. It was necessary to react, once again...
Colapinto in Imola?
Flavio Briatore is not one to be measured in his ambitions. He himself has repeated it on numerous occasions: his goal is to replace Alpine on the podiums as soon as possible and, from 2027, to fight for the world title. Now officially in charge of the team, will his first decision as director concern his drivers?
As a reminder, since the start of the season, the Italian has been demanding performances from Jack Doohan, a rookie in the discipline, while Oliver Oakes has constantly sought to relieve the pressure on the Australian's shoulders, wanting to give him the necessary time to adapt. One cuts onions, the other cries", they say in the paddock to explain the hypocritical distribution of roles between Briatore and Oakes. In Miami, during the sixth round of the season, the young Australian driver had a difficult weekend – punctuated by a retirement in the race at the first corner – and the rumors of a replacement by Franco Colapinto, the team's reserve driver, became increasingly insistent. Notably fueled by… Flavio Briatore himself, master of the art of innuendo and expressive grimaces.
The fact remains that Briatore's solution is not viable in the long term. Aged 75 and suffering, he no longer has the energy required to manage a team of more than 1000 people on a daily basis, at a rate of 24 Grands Prix per year, with all the obligations that come with it. It is therefore advisable to wait for the next announcements fromAlpine, but all this agitation is never good for the serenity of the group. It will not fail to revive the rumors of a sale of the team, now that the supply of the 2026 engine is entrusted to Mercedes.
The most caustic minds will say that the rumor had pointed to Oliver Oakes, in 2024, as the future owner of the team already suspected of being up for sale. Now gone, is the outlook brightening? Nothing could be less certain, on the contrary!
ALSO READ > Three things to know about Oliver Oakes, already a former team principal ofAlpine
-
7,95€ -
11,90€ NEW -
10,90€ -
9,90€ -
9,90€ -
10,90€ -
10,90€ -
10,90€ -
10,90€ -
11,90€ -
11,90€ -
9,90€ -
10,90€ -
10,90€ -
11,90€ -
11,90€ -
10,90€ -
11,90€ -
9,90€
Read also
Jacques Morin
07/05/2025 at 06:44 a.m.
That's a great team to sell to Saudi Arabia... Flavio was only put there to liquidate... now he's going to try to raise the stakes with a big media push... And no, Daniel, Briatore was banned for life: he didn't serve his sentence.
Bernard JOUVENE
07/05/2025 at 12:08 a.m.
Mr. Meyers, what a mentality!! Lamentable!
DANIEL MEYERS
07/05/2025 at 12:42 a.m.
Absolutely, all these do-gooders are pathetic!
vincent moyet
07/05/2025 at 11:07 a.m.
No identity or real project. When Renault withdrew, I thought they were entrusting the baby to Alpine as a "monitoring unit" to avoid losing contact with F1 in view of a possible return. But Renault has let go Alpine who finds himself holding the hot potato without knowing what to do with it. There is no real desire to race in F1 and the team has fallen into the hands of the mafioso who has had access to Renault for a long time, for his personal gain. Another one of those bastards like Ecclestone ready to do anything and everything to get rich.
DANIEL MEYERS
07/05/2025 at 11:00 a.m.
Oliver who? Ah! The one we didn't know (and neither did he) what he was for, what he was doing there, with his sick oyster charisma. Go on Flavio, show all those bitter grumblers how to run an F1 team. Cheater Flavio? Maybe, probably, because then, among all the others, he would be the only one?!!! At the very least he served his sentence. To all those who don't understand/don't accept his presence, I hope that after being judged and having 'paid' your sentence, you find yourself condemned to life by the right-thinking people who arrogate to themselves prerogatives that here below the judges (and that's a good thing) don't have.
LAURENT MOLINEAU
07/05/2025 at 09:49 a.m.
This team is pathetic with its future Mercedes engine, its real identity problem... what's the point?
Lucas Paul
07/05/2025 at 09:05 a.m.
The misfortune of this poor stable Alpine.....she is French, and like her country, so well run.......with a psychopathic president how do you expect things to work out as well as possible! All this is very sad, because to "do things well" they leave Briatore at the helm, a man who is friends with the mafia!
2NIDNCY
07/05/2025 at 08:23 a.m.
The Jester and his Mafia, the return
dedeHJ37
07/05/2025 at 08:06 a.m.
shines wrongly will crash us Alpine !!! This cheater was kicked out of the F1 family through the door and came back through the window, he will stop his misdeeds on his last day
vincent moyet
06/05/2025 at 11:46 a.m.
What stability! It's no surprise that this team is going backwards instead of forwards... Oakes seemed to have arrived to take over the team under the name Hitech with a Mercedes engine, no doubt the project failed because of behind-the-scenes maneuvers by the cheat who wants to steal the spotlight and must have other plans...??
Yves-Henri RANDIER
06/05/2025 at 10:52 a.m.
Given Oakes' background and the more than intrusive personality of Il Magnifico Flavio, Oakes must have realized that he would be "taking the blame" for the poor 2025 performance ofAlpine and has most certainly negotiated his departure! The King of Cheaters is now completely in control without having to deal with an ambitious youngster who will perhaps devote himself to his Hitech F1 project while being fully in charge. It will also be interesting to see if there is an imposed "garden leave" or not!
Navel
06/05/2025 at 10:21 a.m.
I have no more words Alpine This is really the bad joke of F1, damn, never seen such a chaotic team, they beat Ferrari at this game, it's crazy.
Hilton Leon
06/05/2025 at 10:04 a.m.
Flavio: A little old for the job?