Oliver Oakes resigns fromAlpine, Flavio Briatore at the helm
- Published on 06 / 05 / 2025 at 21: 25
- Modified on 07/05/2025 at 09:26
© Eric Alonso / DPPIOliver Oakes, team principalAlpine F1 Team since July 31, 2024, resigns with immediate effect. Flavio Briatore, 75 years old and weakened, will take over as interim chairman.
A big announcement was expected at Alpine : the one officially announcing the departure of jack doohan to Franco Colapinto. However, this was not the news the team shared on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, but rather the departure of Oliver Oakes from his position as director. For the time being, and for an indefinite period, Flavio Briatore will assume his responsibilities.
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 Benz.
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
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What a fine team to sell to Saudi Arabia… Flavio was only put there to get rid of it… now he’s going to try to drive up the price with a lot of media hype… And no, Daniel, Briatore was banned for life: he didn’t serve his sentence.
Mr. Meyers, what a mentality!! Lamentable!
Absolutely, all these do-gooders are pathetic!
Neither identity nor a real project. When Renault withdrew, I thought they were handing the baby over to Alpine like a "monitoring cell" to maintain contact with F1 in anticipation of a possible return. But Renault has let go. Alpine who finds himself with a hot potato and no idea what to do with it. There's no real desire to race in F1, and the team has fallen into the hands of the mobster who has long had connections at Renault, for his own personal gain. Just another one of those bastards like Ecclestone, ready to stoop to any low and make any compromise to get rich.
Oliver who? Ah! The one whose purpose no one knew (and he didn't know either), what he was doing there, with his charisma of a sick oyster. Go ahead, Flavio, show all these bitter grumblers how to run an F1 team. A cheat, Flavio? Maybe, probably, because, among all the others, he'd be the only one?!!! At least he's served his time. To all those who don't understand/accept his presence, I hope that after being judged and 'paying' your sentence, you find yourselves condemned for life by the politically correct crowd that arrogates to itself prerogatives that down here, judges (and thankfully so) don't have.
This team is pathetic with its future Mercedes engine, its real identity problem… what’s the point?
The misfortune of this poor stable Alpine...she is French, and at
The image of his country, so well governed… with a psychopathic president, how can you expect things to work out properly!
It's all very sad, because to "do things right" they're leaving Briatore in charge, a man who's friends with the mafia!
The jester and his mafia,
the return
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
What stability! It's no wonder this team is going backwards instead of forwards… Oakes seemed poised to take over the team under the Hitech name with a Mercedes engine, but the project probably fell through due to behind-the-scenes maneuvers by the cheat who wants to hog the limelight and must have other plans…??
Given Oakes' track record and Il Magnifico Flavio's overbearing personality, Oakes must have realized he was going to "take the blame" for the poor 2025 performances ofAlpine And he most certainly negotiated his departure! The King of Cheaters is now completely in control without having to deal with an ambitious young upstart who might dedicate himself to his Hitech F1 project while being fully in charge. It will be interesting to see if there's a mandatory "garden leave" or not!
I'm speechless. Alpine This is really the worst joke in F1, damn, I've never seen such a chaotic team, they beat Ferrari at this game, it's crazy.
Flavio: A little old for the job?