Briatore: I’m prepared to take some time to find new team principal

Briatore, after the shock resignation of Oakes, is acting as an interim team principal at Alpine in addition to his original job as executive advisor to Renault CEO Luca de Meo.

"We’re looking," Briatore told the media during the team representative press conference over the Spanish Grand Prix weekend.

"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," he pointed out. "We’re looking. We don’t want to make any mistake. I’m prepared to take some time. But the moment we decide what is the new team manager, put in this way, we’ll tell you."

There have been a lot of changes within Alpine since Briatore came back; arguably the most significant was dropping their power unit operations, as they will become Mercedes customers from the 2026 Formula 1 season onwards, when the sport will debut an overhauled set of regulations.

There were also many changes even before that, as instability was the best word to describe the team's situation, and Briatore stressed that does not make life easier for him as he tries to rebuild.

"We’re back in the business, with Alpine," he said. "Not easy because the team has gone through a lot of change, especially in the last four or five years, not only now. But little by little, we try to put the team together, the people together.

"We’re looking for next year as well—for the new engine and the new gearbox from Mercedes-Benz. So, this is our goal for next year. In the meantime, we need to be more competitive. We are not competitive for the moment, like I want, but [it] takes time," he explained.

Briatore has won championships with Alpine before when the team was known as Benetton (1986-2001), taking the drivers' championship with Michael Schumacher in 1994 and both championships in 1995 with the German great also at the wheel.

When the team became Renault, they won two consecutive title doubles (2005-2006) with Fernando Alonso at the wheel and Briatore at the helm.

And while this gives the Italian hope that he can repeat such feats, he admits it is not easy; he said: "It takes a lot of time to build a winning car, a winning race, a winning team. I know I’ve done it before. I hope I’ll do it again.

"You need a dream as well, you know," he responded when asked about the target he set to fight for championships in 2027. "When you are in Formula 1, you're dreaming as well to do the job.

"You hope. And in this moment, the team is quite new. The team is not performing like I wanted because we still have… A lot of the situation in the team is not clear.

“But we need to clear up everything. Before we start performing like I want, I believe we need all of 2025 now, and we need 2026 to be competitive, to at least sometimes see the podium very close. These are what we're looking for.

"And why not 2027? We see what happened to Red Bull. We see what happened to everybody else. Depends as well on what kind of driver we have in 2027." Briatore concluded.

Alpine are currently last in the 2025 F1 constructors' championship with 11 points.

(Reporting by Agnes Carlier)