Alpine hires Steve Nielsen as new managing director

New York Times

11 hours ago

Alpine has signed its former sporting director, Steve Nielsen, to be its Formula One team's managing director — replacing Oliver Oakes after his sudden departure as team principal in May.
Nielsen worked at Alpine between for almost 10 years in the late 1990s and 2000s, and oversaw its sporting matters during its two most recent championship-winning seasons. These were 2005 and 2006, when now Aston Martin racer Fernando Alonso led what was then called Renault to F1 world title doubles.
Advertisement
After starting his career in a short-lived role as a policeman, Nielsen started working as an F1 truck driver before joining the Lotus squad and starting to climb the team role ranks. He left his most recent job with an F1 squad — as sporting manager at Williams — midway through 2017 before he joined the Formula One Management organization.
He held this position overseeing the sporting rules matters on the championship's behalf before leaving to take a similar role at the FIA in 2023. But Nielsen left this job as one of the many rapid exits under president Mohammed Ben Sulayem and then rejoined FOM as a consultant.
Nielsen now rejoins Flavio Briatore at Alpine, as the Italian was the team principal during Renault's title-winning years — leading the team across two stints including when it was known as Benetton from the early 1990s.
Briatore is currently Alpine's executive advisor and de facto team chief, but he did not claim the team principal title when Oakes left following the squad immediately after the Miami Grand Prix.
At the time, this was assumed in some quarters to be related to the decision to replace driver Jack Doohan with Franco Colapinto as Pierre Gasly's teammate in a 2025 season where Alpine is rooted to the bottom of the constructors' championship.
It later transpired that Oakes had resigned after his brother William, and fellow director of junior single-seater team Hitech Grand Prix, had been arrested and charged with 'transferring criminal property', per London's Metropolitan Police. Oliver Oakes is not accused of any wrongdoing.
Announcing Nielsen, an Alpine statement read: 'Under the leadership of Flavio Briatore, Nielsen will oversee the day-to-day running of the team at Enstone, starting from September 1 ahead of the Italian Grand Prix in Monza.'
(Photo of Steve Nielsen alongside Flavio Briatore:)