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A Flavio Briatore “tornado” and a hope of scoring podiums in 2027 underpin the new direction Alpine’s Formula 1 team intends to take after a “mismanaged” past.
Briatore is now a senior figure in Renault’s F1 operation again - 15 years after leaving in the wake of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix deliberate crash and race-fixing scandal - having been rehired a couple of months ago to be chairman Luca de Meo’s executive advisor.
Alpine has since replaced team principal Bruno Famin with Oliver Oakes, who takes charge for the first time at this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix – where he and Briatore spoke to select media including The Race for the first time in their Alpine roles.
In addition to sliding down the competitive order over the last two years, Alpine has had a dramatic time off-track in which various leadership figures have departed including one Alpine CEO, two Alpine F1 team principals, its chief technical officer, its technical director and its sporting director.
Briatore has been at the centre of further upheaval – in addition to the team boss change, de Meo has green-lit a review of the works engine project, which is set to be abandoned to enable a Mercedes customer engine deal – and believes significant action was required because “you need to revitalise the system”.
“We need to do the electric shock,” Briatore said, imitating shaking the table in Alpine’s hospitality unit at Zandvoort, to which Oakes added: “I call it the Flavio tornado!”
Briatore continued: “But we're doing that, I promise you, we're doing that.
“Maybe we will sit here together in one year's time, and already the situation is better.
“But be realistic. It will take time. 2027 is our target to be competitive, to have some podiums, to be there.”
ENSTONE ‘MISMANAGED’
Alpine started the ground-effect era brightly in 2022 (pictured above), finishing fourth in the constructors’ championship.
It slipped to sixth last year and only has 11 points from 14 races so far in 2024, leaving Alpine a disappointing eighth in the standings.
In that time Laurent Rossi was replaced as Alpine CEO, team principal Otmar Szafnauer was removed from his role and Viry engine facility boss Bruno Famin replaced him alongside a broader role as vice president of Alpine motorsport, and technical chiefs Pat Fry and Matt Harman resigned in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
Famin is now being shuffled into a Viry-only role again after stepping down as team principal this August.
Briatore believes Alpine’s decline is because of “a few wrong managers”, while Oakes said “I daresay it’s been mismanaged for quite a few years”.
“Enstone has something which money can’t buy,” Oakes said.
“It has a racing spirit, it has a history. You can’t help but find something that gives massive passion.
“It’s easy to point the blame and we’ve done a lot of talking in the past and it’s a bit frustrating and that’s not my style.
“Genuinely, we just have to get back to focusing on racing. And there are some amazing people there. It’s not the fault of the people. It’s the fault of the leadership before.
“I’m in a lucky position. It’s a great team.
“There are lots of things to do but actually it’s very simple. We need a better car and to get everybody working together.”
Oakes and Briatore both reiterated that Enstone has a strong foundation to work from in terms of human and technical resources – indicating it just needs the right leadership.
“The big thing we have in Enstone is the building won seven or eight world championships,” said Briatore.
“It just has to come back and Oli’s job is to make everyone aware we are competitive again, we are working to win. We don’t just go around with a team and a motorhome, we want to be part of Formula 1, be performing, and to win a race one day.”
A TIMELINE THAT REFLECTS REALITY
Although Briatore has named a specific target and timeline – “some podiums in 2027” – this feels different to past Alpine/Renault mistakes.
It’s a broader target than the ill-fated 100-race plan of the Rossi/Szafnauer era, which itself was preceded by a five-year plan to fight for world championships. And it seems rooted in the current reality: Alpine was previously scoring the odd podium, it’s slipped a long way from that, so it needs to recover and it might take a long time to do that.
“The situation we have is not an ideal situation,” said Briatore.
“I tell you the truth, it’s very, very difficult in this moment, because the competition is very hard.”
Oakes said that, while following F1 from the fringes, it would “drive me a bit crazy” to see people deliver “long speeches” and talk about “X number of races” to be successful. “It gets a bit painful to keep reading that.”
But Oakes said he, Briatore and de Meo are “committed to this”, that the emphasis would just be on trying to improve as much as possible year after year, and that if this worked he would be given the time his predecessors were not afforded.
“If we all do a good job and move forwards, we’re going to be here,” Oakes said.
“I always laugh in F1 - what’s short-term, what’s long-term and what’s medium-term? Everyone has a different opinion.
“Mine is: we’re in the situation we are in today for the last two or three years. At the beginning of this year, you’ve seen the results. I think they’ve done a good job to try to regroup until now and add performance to the car.
“We’re not where we want to be and we’ll just continue with that. There’s no long speeches or promises on that. You guys can judge me in a few years.”
WHERE OAKES FITS IN
Oakes is a first-time F1 team principal and at 36 is young for an F1 team boss. He has significant leadership experience, though.
He founded the Hitech GP junior single-seater organisation in 2015, has led it for almost a decade, and gunned for a prospective 2026 F1 entry with Hitech too. Plus, he’s a former driver himself - pictured below as a Red Bull junior in Formula BMW UK in 2006.
So, Oakes has no shortage of experience in motorsport. And Briatore believes his age is relevant in a good way, describing him as “enthusiastic” and “ambitious”.
“It’s what we need in the team,” said Briatore.
“To turn around this team, you need young people. You need people with the right passion for the job. The people understand who is the good one, the bad one. The people who understand what's going on in the factory. The people who understand what's going on in the race.
“Oli has no experience [running] a big team like this one but [has] the talent to be successful.”
One of the obvious benefits Oakes will bring to the role is full focus to running Enstone, which was previously under Famin’s watch – but he had a broader Alpine remit to manage as well.
“Enstone is a big team, a big monster, you need to be there,” said Briatore.
“It's very difficult to manage one team like Alpine, from Paris. You need the daily presence.”
Briatore felt Alpine needed a team principal change as a priority and Oakes quickly came onto his radar after recommendations elsewhere.
“I talked with a lot of people, three or four potential team principals,” Briatore said.
“I became convinced Oli was the right choice for the team, working with me and working with everybody together.”
WHAT ABOUT RECRUITMENT?
Although there has been a lot of turnover in the senior leadership, and Alpine has bled some other staff to rivals, Briatore spoke as though significant recruitment is unlikely. When he outlined all that is needed to be successful in F1, he suggested that total staff number was a red herring.
“We need the right drivers, the right team, the right technical director, the right managers," he said. "[So] everything is working.
“And we don't need to have so many people as well. It is not the team with a lot of people that is a top team. A top team is the team with the people working together and the people at the same ambition to arrive at the top.”
This was consistent with a strong message from both Briatore and Oakes that the existing workforce was capable of achieving more than it has so far. Oakes said it is a “special place” that requires “a lot of love, a lot of understanding”, to which Briatore added “and time, spending time with the people”.
“It is the people who made the company,” said Briatore, drawing a comparison to Enstone’s title-winning days in the 1990s as Benetton and 2000s as Renault, when he was with the team the first time.
“It’s not the company that made the people.
“Whatever we're doing, you need to work with the people. Put the people in the right place and make sure everybody is in the same line. Make sure everybody is pushing for the same result.
“You need the team spirit again, like we have before, like we have in Benetton, like we have in Renault.
“It will take a little bit of time, but we need to do it quick. It’s the mission we have.”
If a recruitment drive seems unlikely, Briatore remained open to making a late bid for the soon-to-be-available Adrian Newey as “everything’s possible in life” – but only on the basis that “should something happen that’s a good possibility, we do it, but only if it’s good for the team”.
“And then it’s not an ego trip,” he said. “Because one man is not changing the team.
“You don’t buy the culture to win. We have plenty of people who buy, buy, buy, but the result is not really in proportion with what you buy.”
DE MEO’S ROLE
Briatore and Oakes were both quick to defend de Meo in how Renault has handled its disappointment in F1.
Briatore said he’d been “very supportive even in this era with not wonderful results”, and that this was the first time he’d had “such big support from Renault” in all his dealings with the company, while Oakes called de Meo “the most passionate” and said “it’s not right he’s been blamed” for Alpine’s failings.
“For us, it’s really a mission to him because Renault and Alpine deserve to be more competitive,” said Briatore. Oakes added that “there’s too much rubbish written in the press today, which just isn’t completely true”.
“Luca is committed, he’s hugely passionate,” said Oakes. “It’s not his fault the team’s in this state, he’s supported it, he’s backed it.
“We have to take responsibility for what went on in the past and bring the team back.”
If various personnel really have mismanaged Alpine on different levels, though, then it was de Meo who put at least some of them in charge.
While he did not personally recruit jobs like the technical director, he must have been instrumental in Rossi becoming Alpine CEO, Szafnauer being made team principal, and Famin being appointed to his various positions.
And if all of those failed in one way or another, at some point the buck must stop with the big boss at Renault. De Meo has to bear some responsibility for the problems.
Similarly, Briatore insists the decision to move away from making a Renault engine in Viry was made before he got involved. It can only be de Meo’s order, then, that means Alpine may well forfeit works team status.
ENGINE PLAN AND SALE RUMOURS
Briatore claimed he has “no idea” whether the Viry engine programme could be revived in the future if it gets shut down as is planned.
Workers in Viry are pushing back on the intention to redirect investment and personnel to other Alpine/Renault group projects, and save a significant amount of money by paying a much lower fee to be a Mercedes customer instead.
On the rationale for abandoning its own engine for 2026, when development is already well advanced for the new rules, Briatore pointed to Renault’s woeful record in the V6 turbo-hybrid era. He implied that the company had determined prior to his arrival that the immense expense was not worthwhile.
“The problem is the evidence,” he said. “The stuff with the engine was decided already by the management of Renault and for me it’s fine.
“Our chairman decided it was fine. This was decided already before I arrived in the team.
“I’m not the bad guy all the time! Everything else, you can blame me, but not this one!”
That decision has raised question marks over Renault’s ultimate commitment. But Briatore insists it is total – despite a feeling in the F1 paddock that Alpine will eventually be sold.
“No,” said Briatore. “There is nothing for sale. [If anything], we buy. If there’s any opportunity we’d buy another Formula 1 team.
“Some things are very clear. Luca de Meo never wants to sell the team. Question finito.”
