It’s official: Jack Doohan will be replaced by Franco Colapinto at Alpine, as the team’s press release states, for the next five races.
However, the resignation of Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes following the Miami Grand Prix, blindsiding the many that expected a driver ousting first, only has reaffirmed that the French marque’s F1 presence remains an omnishambles.
Doohan had been subject to intense scrutiny coming into his rookie season in 2025, following Alpine’s big money signing of Williams talent Colapinto to their reserve driver ranks and subsequent lack of public support from the team’s executive advisor and now team principal in Flavio Briatore.
Media and fans alike had nauseatingly magnified the rhetoric that the Aussie would be replaced by 21-year-old Colapinto – who impressed in his outings for Williams late year, upon replacing Logan Sargeant – ad nauseam to the point where it became a matter of get it over and done with.
Following Doohan’s second first-lap exit during the Miami Grand Prix, where a racing incident with Liam Lawson threw shade over the fact he outqualified race winning teammate Pierre Gasly for the first time, media reports had intensified again that the 22-year-old has at last received the tap on the shoulder.
Hence, the surprise that a statement released by the Alpine outfit on Tuesday confirmed the shock resignation of Oakes. The Briton having not even lasting 12-months in the role, being appointed as team principal in August last year after Bruno Famin’s short-lived tenure.
While the narrative has very much revolved around Doohan and perpetuating his underperformance, Oakes’ departure very much should shift the spotlight back onto the management of Alpine overall.
Jack with his famous father Mick Doohan. (Photo by Qian Jun/MB Media/Getty Images)
The management that remains to be a revolving door, along with countless personnel and drivers who’ve come and gone since Renault’s re-establishment as a works team in 2016.
Sure, a couple of lap one crashes (including at his home race in challenging conditions) and a high-profile shunt during practice in Japan doesn’t reflect well on the Aussie – though neither should the fact since the pre-season, it’s as if he was setup for failure.
“As it is today, Jack is our driver along with Pierre (Gasly),” Oakes had said on Friday in Miami when grilled about Doohan’s future for the umpteenth time.
“We always evaluate, but yeah, today, that is the case.”
Oakes at least throughout the season had advocated for Doohan, more so than Briatore. Constantly having to defend his driver amidst public scrutiny, while the once banned-for-life from F1 Briatore has been the perpetuator of the opposite.
“It’s been a little bit harsh on Jack [Doohan], some of the stuff that was written by the keyboard warriors there, and he’s getting his fair crack at it next year,” was what Oakes said at the end of 2024 even, on the James Allen podcast – hitting back at the treatment of Doohan online.
Whilst no other comment has been made by Alpine regarding Oakes’ resignation, it has been speculated given the immediacy of his departure that this is linked to differences between he and Briatore regarding the driver situation.
The 75-year-old Italian, who led this Enstone team to world championship success with Michael Schumacher in the ’90s and then again with Fernando Alonso in the mid-2000s, was appointed in this advisory role by Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo last June, despite having been thrown out of the sport for his role in the 2008 Crashgate scandal.
How naive it would’ve been to think that a presence as influential and manipulative as Briatore wasn’t always going to be pulling the strings one way or another within that outfit – even though Oakes was the team principal. The seismic decision in canning the maligned Renault engine project ahead of the 2026 regulations overhaul came at the recommendation of Briatore after all.
It beggars belief ultimately, that with their estimated net value of US$1.4 billion (Forbes 2023 valuation) and the fact that Renault’s manufacturing involvement in the team will end at the conclusion this year, that de Meo hasn’t sold off the entirety of the F1 project.
Performance-wise, while Doohan has been negatively singled out – there’s no escaping that Alpine’s pre-season optimism hasn’t been realised. Sitting ninth in the championship and with star driver Gasly still searching for more overall speed from the car.
Let’s not delude ourselves into believing Colapinto won’t be continuing as an Alpine race driver beyond the five races. Though also the fact a team that boasts such a swathe of young drivers, needs to rotate and evaluate them through a championship season means there is little in the realm of nurture.
Revisiting the demotion of Lawson in April and Red Bull’s bandying of ‘duty of care’ to its driver in such a tokenistic manner, the jury is still out there that whether it was really the organic spacer’s lack of performance in the car – or whether the malignment is with the car than with the driver.
The same can be said about when Colapinto jumps aboard the A525 and whether Doohan was really as bad everyone’s suggested.
Or ultimately has another driver been scapegoated, while a much greater issue remains at large?
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