The resignation of Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes on the Sunday of the Miami Grand Prix was initially assumed to be an outcome of his disagreement with executive director Flavio Briatore about dropping driver Jack Doohan in favour of Franco Colapinto. But a subsequent statement from the team and Oakes insisted this was not so and that the resignation was for personal reasons. Soon afterwards came news that Oakes’ brother William – a fellow director of the Hitech F2/F3 team – had been arrested and charged with ‘transferring criminal property’.
Both Carlos Sainz Sr and Alex Wurz are considering standing for the role of FIA President in the coming elections of December this year. Incumbent President Mohammed Ben Sulayem intends to campaign for re-election.
Ferrari is set to introduce a new rear suspension – probably at Silverstone – in an attempt to cure the car’s inability to run at its designed ride height without inducing excessive plank wear.
As McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri studied GPS traces from Monaco practice and saw Charles Leclerc’s stunning speed through Tabac, Norris asked his team-mate: “Think you could do that?” Piastri replied: “I think you should try it first.”
Max Verstappen was not a fan of the two-stop stipulation in Monaco which saw much of the field reduced to a crawl for long stages as team strategy played out. “We were almost doing Mario Kart,” he said. “Then we have to install bits on the car. Maybe you can throw bananas around.”
Aston Martin technical chief Adrian Newey has warned a competitive transformation for the team could take some time as the new Driver-in-Loop simulator is not performing correctly and that sorting it could take two years.
