Pierre Gasly says he understands and supports Alpine’s decision to completely revamp its F1 car concept this year despite a disappointing campaign so far.

Before undergoing a major technical reshuffle in recent months, Alpine chose not to develop the main ideas of the A523 any further in an attempt to open up a new avenue offering greater scope for development with this year’s A524.

Fourth in the constructors’ championship in 2022, the Enstone-based team slipped to sixth place last year.

But after the first half of the season, the results have left Alpine with only 11 points scored and in a very distant eighth place in the championship.

But Gasly continues to believe that the decision taken at the time was justified.

«I think it’s performance-related. Last year the team felt that it got to the end of the development with their car concept,» Gasly told Autosport.

«As we missed our targets, they’re like, ‘do we want to go for another year where we know we’ll probably be stuck to where we are?’ And they said, we want more than that, so, we’ll try something else.

«Which to me, I think was the right choice. We’re not in Formula 1 to be satisfied with the sixth place in the constructors’.»

Pierre Gasly, Alpine A524

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Alpine’s hopes have been dashed and, for the time being, even Haas’ seventh place seems illusory.

However, Gasly is counting on the work done at Enstone and on the margin for improvement to do better in the months to come and, above all, to have a more solid base when it comes to 2025.

«Unfortunately, it didn’t pay out with the directions that you know they took with the car concept we have this year, but nonetheless, I still think the way the team’s operating is at a better level than when I arrived,» he said.

«So, it’s a matter of bringing that performance onto the car, which is obviously not easy, but I know we’ve got good directions already for next season, which will put us in a better place and with the sort and processes and the people and what they’ve built and kept working, I can feel that there’ll be something good coming out of it.»

Oliver Oakes has been named as Alpine’s new team principal as the revolving managerial door at the Enstone-and-Viry-based outfit is halted once again.

He becomes the third person to occupy the role since the start of last season, following Otmar Szafnauer and Bruno Famin — the latter stepping down less than a year after making his interim tenure permanent.

The team principal position is far from the only one to have seen change in the past three years, with the top brass at Alpine seemingly chopping and changing on a yearly basis.

But that has changed since the arrival of former boss Flavio Briatore in an advisory role, though his presence in the press release announcing Oakes’ appointment suggests he is far more integrated than perhaps would be expected.

So with Oakes at the helm and Mercedes engines expected to take over from in-house Renault in the coming years, who is the man tasked with turning things around?

Read Also:

A Red Bull Junior Team protege

Oakes has been surrounded by racing since an early age, given his father’s links to the sport. Billy Oakes was the founder and owner of former Formula Renault and British F3 outfit Eurotek Motorsport.

By the age of 12, Oakes was a two-time British Open karting champion, and at 17, he became karting world champion, beating off the likes of Valtteri Bottas, Jules Bianchi and Edoardo Mortara. That led to him being picked up by Red Bull’s illustrious young driver programme.

At the time, Oakes would have been with Red Bull alongside former F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel, as well as World Endurance champions Brendon Hartley and Sebastien Buemi.

A move to Formula BMW followed, where Oakes took pole and the victory in his first race and finishing sixth at the end of the season would earn a nomination for what was then the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award [now the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award].

Oliver Oakes

Photo by: GP3 Series Media Service

But whilst moves to British F3 and GP3 came, his racing career never flourished quite how it threatened and he stepped away from the cockpit to take up what has to date been a successful managerial career.

Leading Hitech Grand Prix

Oakes’ tenure at the helm of Hitech is perhaps the most well-known of his management career, but he has been responsible for some of the brightest young talents in motorsport from a much earlier age.

Team Oakes Racing was formed in 2011 to take on the karting ranks, with Callum Ilott and Marcus Armstrong the most notable drivers to have been affiliated. Nikita Mazepin — who would later have much closer ties with Oakes at Hitech — and Clement Novalak also drove for the team.

Hitech Racing became Hitech Grand Prix under Oakes’ gaze in 2015 and, over the years, took funding from Nikita Mazepin’s father, Dmitry, and his company Uralkali, which became controversial when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2021 and the Mazepins were hit by EU sanctions.

But aside from that, the team has underlined its status as a linchpin of the junior formulae, taking wins and challenging championships in almost every series it has participated in, with the likes of George Russell coming through their ranks.

George Russell, HitechGP Dallara F312 – Mercedes-Benz with Oliver Oakes

Photo by: James Gasperotti

The highlight of this season so far is Paul Aron’s third in the F2 standings, following the Estonian’s consistency in the first half of the season.

In F3, Luke Browning is only six points off top in third heading into the final round of the campaign at Monza.

Oliver Oakes in F1

For Oakes, the step into F1 with Alpine is not his first look into the championship. Hitech was one of the hopeful outfits aiming to become an 11th team when the FIA opened its Expressions of Interest process last year, though the team never passed the governing body’s initial application stages. Andretti was the only team to manage that, though was rejected by F1.

But there is no doubting Oakes’ pedigree in leading an organisation forward. With Briatore in tandem, Oakes will be able to focus solely on Alpine’s on-track exploits at a time when its drivers are becoming particularly frustrated with its current situation.

At the Belgian Grand Prix, Pierre Gasly called on the team to cut out mistakes after three issues in as many races, while outgoing Esteban Ocon has been less than enthused with its lacklustre start to the season.

The irony is that Oakes was once a part of Christian Horner’s cohort of young drivers at Red Bull, yet his career has taken a near identical path.

A father who owned a junior racing team, a racing career cut short to take up the managerial reins and a step into the highest echelon of single-seater racing with a world-renowned brand.

How exactly he will instigate change at the team is yet to be seen, as is how much freedom he will have to take the reins alone, without the meddling that has so often hindered Alpine and Renault before it.

But if Oakes can have half the success of Horner in F1, Alpine will be most happy.

Editor Stuart Codling is joined by columnist Mark Gallagher and Autosport’s Grand Prix Editor Alex Kalinauckas to discuss the dramatic return of former Benetton and Renault team principal Briatore, announced on the eve of the Spanish Grand Prix, to the Enstone team as an advisor to Renault CEO Luca de Meo.

At a time when Alpine is seeking to rebound from its current technical shortcomings, and the prospect of abandoning its works Renault engines on the table, how the controversial Italian tarnished by his involvement in 2008’s ‘Crashgate’ scandal will proceed will be intriguing to follow in the weeks and months ahead.

The 2008 season was also notable for Lewis Hamilton taking his first of eight wins in the British Grand Prix in a wet weather thriller. The soon-to-be former Mercedes driver has enjoyed numerous magic moments at Silverstone in his career, and not all of them in F1, as his future boss at Ferrari Fred Vasseur recounts as part of the magazine’s preview package.

The trio discuss the intriguing tactics used by Hamilton’s McLaren team during his 2008 win, which involved utilising GP Racing‘s own photographer Steven Tee to analyse the tyre wear of his competitors, and the rise of Yuki Tsunoda as RB’s team leader to put his team-mate’s F1 future under threat.