F1 | Briatore: “Too many bad managers have influenced Alpine”

Flavio Briatore met the media for the first time since accepting the role of special advisor to Alpine president Luca De Meo. The occasion was the presentation of the team’s new team principal, Oliver Oakes, but Briatore did not shy away from a series of questions about Alpine’s present and future. In true “Flavio” style, he got straight to the point when asked what led to the crisis situation in which the Alpine F1 project finds itself today.

“There was no management,” he explained, “I think this was the biggest problem that affected Alpine. I think at a certain point they chose some wrong managers, and I think it’s quite a long list, on the contrary, we don’t have a list of good ones. It’s not easy to manage the Enstone headquarters, it’s a big structure and requires a daily presence. You can’t manage it from Paris or anywhere else, you need to be present on the ground. And if you ask me why I chose Oliver (Briatore smiles) it’s because he lives 400 meters from the factory!”

Briatore stressed that the Enstone staff need an injection of confidence and enthusiasm, and for this reason he wanted a young team principal at the helm (Oakes is 36 years old) to convey the desire to give their best to all the employees.

“Ollie is enthusiastic, young and ambitious, and that’s what we need in the team,” he stressed. “To get the team going again, we need young people, people with a lot of passion for their work. Ultimately, it all comes down to the ability to understand who is up to the task and who isn’t. Ollie doesn’t have specific experience at the helm of a big team yet, but he has the talent we need.

Oakes described Briatore’s arrival in Enstone as a real tornado. “We need to revitalise the system, give everyone an electroshock,” Briatore said with a smile. “Yes, the tornado Flavio has arrived!”, added Oakes.

But his feet remain firmly on the ground. Briatore admitted that it will take time to get back to where the team wants to be, also dictating some initial timescales. “We have to be realistic,” he stressed, “we want to get back to winning some podiums in 2027, the situation we are starting from is not ideal. I’ll tell you the truth: F1 is very, very difficult at the moment, because the competition is really tough. We have six, seven very good teams, all capable of winning races.”

“We will have to try to make our way in this competition which is very tough, and the only way is to work hard in the right direction. We need the right driver, the right team, the right technical director and the right management. Everything has to work properly, it is not a question of the total number of people working in the team, but of having high-level people. A top team in the end is a team made up of people who work together and with the same ambition to get to the top.”