Briatore to act quickly on new Alpine team principal

Flavio Briatore says he will make a quick decision on who the new Alpine team principal is, following Oliver Oakes’ resignation earlier this month.

Oakes unexpectedly left Alpine after the Miami Grand Prix, handing his resignation with immediate effect for personal reasons. The departure led to executive director Briatore taking on Oakes’ responsibilities for the time being, but the Italian says he has a few candidates in mind that he is honing in on as a replacement.

“We’re looking,” Briatore said. “For the moment, nothing changed. I feel sorry for Ollie, honestly, because I had a very good relationship with him. He was a good team principal. Everybody knows for personal reasons he stopped and resigned from Alpine.

“We’re looking. We don’t want to make any mistakes. I’m prepared to take some time. But the moment we decide who is the new team manager, put it this way, we’ll tell you. 

“Now we're looking for somebody... there's a lot of people for whom it is possible to be doing this kind of job. But we’re looking for somebody good, somebody who understands, somebody who wants to be part of the team. I know a few people who want to be part of this new trip with Alpine. We'll decide quick.”

The departure of Oakes came just before Alpine confirmed Franco Colapinto would replace Jack Doohan for at least five races as the team evaluates its future options. Briatore has since claimed there is no five-race timeline for Colapinto’s seat, but admits if the Argentine struggles to be close to teammate Pierre Gasly, the team will review the situation. 

“We need to wait one second to judge Franco," he said. "We see this race – we need the full race. We did Monte Carlo, it was a very special race for everybody. We made a lot of mistakes in qualifying, and in Monte Carlo, qualifying well is the race. Especially this race. Monte Carlo, it was very boring and very annoying.

“This is the first real race for Franco. Races, I don’t know, honestly. I never tell [him] ‘five races, three races, four races, one race’. We’ll see. If Colapinto is performing he’s driving the car. If not, we’ll see.

“2025 is a year we need to prepare ourselves for 2026. So whatever experiment I need doing, we’re doing. I don’t know at this moment if Franco will stay for the season or not, but let’s see. It depends on the performance. We’re only looking at the performance – nothing else.”