Alpine — making mediocre F1 look exciting: Up/Down at Imola

Finally, after months of waiting, the F1 season has now truly started.

With Piastri, Norris and Verstappen taking turns to win races with utmost professionalism and minimal drama, we’ve been left to look away from the track for entertainment.

Luckily, there’s always Alpine. Only Enstone could manage two seismic controversies within 24 hours.

Jack Doohan being demoted in place of Franco Colapinto followed by team boss Oliver Oakes suddenly resigning for personal reasons – soon after his brother was charged with transferring criminal property — was the gunshot grand prix racing needed to get underway.

The fact it wrongfooted almost the entire specialist press (including us), most of whom at first assumed Oakes quit in a fit of pique over the Colapinto switch, made it even funnier.

Flavio Briatore, the team’s chief advisor and arch controversy artist, was left saying ‘not me ‘guv’ in relation to the latter incident. For once, he actually didn’t do anything.

Red Bull changes drivers so often people barely notice, but Enstone did fans a service with a bit of high-speed controversy.

Going Up – The great entertainers

Only Alpine and Franco Colapinto could make finishing 16th look so exciting.

The Argentinian gives off the impression he’s going fast, even when he isn’t, as demonstrated by his practice crash in Q2.

He then cycled up and down the order before finishing where he started.

Colapinto managed to encapsulate his whole F1 career in one race weekend. Would Jack Doohan’s end race result have been much different?

Probably not. But would also been a bit boring in comparison.

Going Down – Slow starters

Time and again McLaren drivers allow themselves to be mugged off at the start by Verstappen.

It was a brilliant move to snatch the lead at Turn 1, but surely Piastri could have anticipated he would almost certainly have gone for it?

Going Up – Ai.Lonso

It’s appropriate that on the weekend Aston finally showed some pace in qualifying (before naffing it up on strategy in the race), its real achievement in F1 comes up for a first anniversary.

Ai.Lonso, the green team’s website feature which reads out articles to you in a computer-generated voice that sounds like the double world champion, was created almost a year ago.

Finally, something AI is good for. You can see all teams just doing this for all media duties in the future, making AI versions of drivers to answer the inane questions in the TV pen and press conferences.

Going Down – Lost legacy

It looks like 2025 might have been the end of the road for Imola in F1, at least as a permanent venue (instead possibly being on a roster of ‘classic’ circuits which get rotated from now on).

Don’t worry though, it’s the Madrid Business Park GP next year, woo (if they actually get round to building it.).

Going Up – Back in blue

Williams has somehow turned its form around from last year despite having basically the same car, and at one point in Imola it looked as though Alexander Albon might be on for a podium.

The Grove team hasn’t snared a top three spot since George Russell four years ago at Spa (and that one didn’t really count). Can Williams get back on the rostrum soon?

Going up – Almost Famous

Ronaldo (not the Cristiano one) said he knew who Ted Kravitz was during his pre-race grid walk when the pair bumped into each other. A true fan.

Going Down – Tyre larks

When the going gets hot, Mercedes’ tyres fall apart.

“There’s clearly a trend,” a red-faced George Russell told Adam Cooper. “When it’s hot, we’re nowhere. When it’s cold, we’re quick.”

Can the Brackley kids find a way to fight through the haze of the European summer?

Going Up – Scarlet Creep

Here’s a collector’s item for you: Ferrari actually did a decent job of the strategy.

It meant Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc secured fourth and sixth respectively after starting out of the points, and that the Scuderia now has 114 big ones compared to Red Bull’s 131.

Mercedes only has 147. Second in the constructors’ could still be on…