Alpine advisor Flavio Briatore has taken over the duties of former team boss Oliver Oakes, but someone else is acting as the new team boss in Imola
After Oliver Oakes stepped down as Alpine team boss, it was said that Flavio Briatore would take over “all duties” previously held by Oakes. However, this is not the case at the 2025 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in Imola: Briatore may have the power of a team boss, but he is not the team boss.
This is because Briatore is an external advisor and not a member of the Alpine team. He is also not a licensee of the International Automobile Federation (FIA). Therefore, he cannot take up a position that would involve him appearing in an FIA racing series. Briatore will therefore not be attending the official FIA press conference, for example.
However, Alpine has appointed someone to take on the representative duties of a team boss, but without actually being the team boss: Dave Greenwood.
Greenwood or Briatore, who is the boss here?
The long-time Formula 1 team official previously worked for Ferrari and Renault under Briatore, among others. In Imola, he is the “face” of Alpine, but Briatore makes the decisions.
What does the world governing body think about this? An FIA spokesperson told the BBC: “We believe it is Alpine’s responsibility to provide information about its management structure. We have no comment on this.” However, the team has indicated that it has made all the necessary changes to comply with the regulations.
In concrete terms, this means that Greenwood is Oakes’ replacement in public, while Briatore remains the man in charge at Alpine – reporting only to Renault boss Luca de Meo. And Alpine does not have a real team principal who actually holds this position, at least not in Imola.
Briatore: Back into Formula 1 through the back door
If Alpine does indeed appoint Briatore as team boss one day, it would be the first time he has held an official role in Formula 1 since the “Crashgate” scandal. At the time, the world governing body banned him from all FIA competitions – a ruling that was overturned by a French court in 2010. Briatore then kept a low profile.
It was not until 2024 that he made a grand return to Formula 1: as an advisor to the struggling Alpine team. Briatore promptly got involved in day-to-day business and, among other things, paved the way for Renault to abandon its own engine project, meaning that Alpine will compete as a Mercedes customer team from the 2026 Formula 1 season onwards.
