Flavio Briatore is both a maverick and a force of nature within the Formula One paddock, his rise to management and team ownership was astonishing in its pace. Briatore attended his first F1 weekend in Australia in 1988 and declared he had little interest in the sport.
Luciano Benetton appointed Flavio commercial director of his family owned and named F1 team and when the management was fired soon after, Briatore was promoted to being the managing director and he set about making the team competitive.
Crashgate in Singapore 2008, where Nelson Piquet Jnr was instructed to put his car into the wall so as to benefit team mate Fernando Alonso, saw Flavio thrown out of Formula One, but earlier this season he was appointed by Renault as a special advisor to the Alpine team.
Briatore no nonsense appointment
By the time Briatore joined the team in late June, the Monaco debacle between the drivers was already water under the bridge and Esteban Ocon had announced he was leaving the team. A handful of weeks later rookie Jack Doohan had been announced as his replacement for 2025.
Flavio was consumed with the big picture on his arrival in Enstone and the early work in terms of a turnaround appeared to be focused on the ailing Renault F1 power plant division in Viry. Whether the Doohan appointment was somewhat under his radar, only Briatore can confirm or deny, but recent media reports suggests this may be the case as the Italian is now focusing his attention on the plans for 2025.
In the days running up to the season finale in Abu Dhabi, Alpine made the somewhat shock announcement they were standing down Esteban Ocon and bringing in Doohan to give him an F1 race weekend experience, yet for some paddock observers there were undertones behind this action which may not bode well for Jack Doohan.
Jack Doohan does have a contract for 2025 but F1 journalist Julianne Cerasoli believes talks continue behind the scenes which may result in the Australian’s F1 career being over before it properly began. Cerasoli suggests Doohan is being evaluated this weekend as Briatore continues to eyecup Franco Colapinto.
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Doohan for the chop
Speaking to the Pittas podcast Cerasoli said: “Speaking about Alpine, I keep hearing that Colapinto is not out of the picture at all for 2025. And that Flavio Briatori is actually looking for a way to get rid of Jack Doohan.”
So far Doohan has been less than spectacular in Abu Dhabi in the lower reaches of the timesheets across the practice session then plumb last in qualifying one. Speaking to Sky ahead of qualifying he claimed his plan was to work his way into the weekend slowly, building up his place rather than adopting a reckless approach and crashing the Alpine.
Yet as Cerasoli observes, with Alpine pushing for P6 and the extra $10m payout that brings, putting a rookie into the chaser just does not make sense. “The whole fact that Doohan is doing his first race in Formula 1 in this Grand Prix is to evaluate knowing that he’s not going to be good enough, so it would be an excuse for Flavio to drop him,” he claims.
“Flavio is being very active in the paddock, talking to everyone and it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case.”
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Nyck de Vries principle
Of course judging a driver across a single weekend is a dangerous thing to do as Red Bull found out with Nyck de Vries. Having successfully debuted as a substitute for the stricken Alex Albon, the Dutch driver was recruited by AlphaTauri as their full time driver alongside Yuki Tsunoda for the following year.
Ten races into his full time F1 career it was all over as the returning Danial Ricciardo took over his seat for the remainder of the year.
Franco Colapinto arrived in F1 with a bang. Replacing the hapless Logan Sargeant he became an immediate success. He scored points in two of his first four race weekends and proved to be a lot closer to Alex Albon than had been his predecessor.
Red Bull expressed an interest in the driver given their continued Sergio Perez predicament and an uncertainty within the Red Bull camp that either Liam Lawson or Yuki Tsunoda will cut the mustard alongside Max Verstappen.
Colapinto interest continues
Multiple crashes and millions of damage in Brazil and Las Vegas somewhat wiped the shine off Colapinto’s Senna-esque like comparisons and Red Bull have reportedly dropped all interest in the Argentinian driver. But all is not lost for the bright young pretender as Flavio is now interested in recruiting his services as a replacement for Jack Doohan.
“Of course, for that to happen, Williams would need some money, so it’s not a cheap thing for Flavio to do,” continued Serasoli. “But I’m really not thinking that Colapinto is completely out of the picture.”
Money should be no object given the backing Colapinto has from a number of South American sponsors. The agreement in principal Red Bull had with Williams was that the investors would buy out his contract with the team and then control the rights to his image going forward.
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Flavio’s bigger plan
Alpine team boss Oliver Oakes outlined he had few expectations of the Aussie coming into the weekend yet this is merely designed to ease the pressure from the shoulders of the team’s long protege.
Doohan hardly set the world alight during his F3 and F2 years, with no championships to his name and a best finish of second in the 2021 F3 campaign. The Australian was part of the Red Bull driver academy until 2021 when he was let go because the team saw no future in him as an F1 driver. The move to Alpine revived Jack’s hopes of making it to Formula One.
He described the move to the French owned squad as a “no brainer” because the team’s extensive testing programme and project with the World Endurance Championship would provide him with a myriad of opportunities going forward.
Flavio is nothing if not cut throat, and Jack Doohan’s outing this weekend is all part of a bigger plan the Italian is hatching.
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Pirelli data shows dramatic gains made by McLaren – The new breed of Formula One cars introduced in 2022 have begun to approach a point of convergence as Red Bull Racing hit a development ceiling following their uber dominant 2023. The world champions started the year well winning seven of the first ten races before the fateful Austrian Grand Prix.
There McLaren looked to have the quicker car during the weekend but Max Verstappen found a way to lead Norris in the race and defended as though his life depended upon it. Their coming together was inevitable and it was Lando who was forced to retire his car, while Verstappen limped home in fifth place.
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
