Mick Duane defended his son in his own way

      Mick Duane, renowned Australian motorcycle racer, five-time world champion in the 500cc class.sm, of course, understands perfectly well what laws the world of auto and motorsport lives by.

      Even if the technique has moved far ahead compared to the period 1994-1998, when he won almost 40% of the races in which he started, scoring 54 victories, these laws remained roughly the same. Therefore, in his own way, he defended his son Jack, who had just been demoted from the main line-up of Alpine F1 to reservists.

      Without any comments, Duane Sr. simply posted two pictures on social media - on the first we see the results of Pierre Gasly, on the second – the results of Jack in the first six races of the season. Of course, there is some difference, but not that significant, especially considering that Gasly has already won 159 Grands Prix, and he is in his 9th season in Formula 1, while Duane is a rookie, and the Miami stage was only his 7th race in the World Championship.

      But the factory team of the French Renault concern has made its decision, and next weekend Franco Colapinto will become Gasly's new partner.

      One of the consequences of this was the resignation of Oliver Oakes from the post of head of Alpine F1, although perhaps indirectly, especially since, according to the official version, he left the team "for personal reasons."

      But it is known that Oakes defended Duane to the last, although he admitted that when the Australian crashed cars, it cost the team dearly. In particular, this was the case in Suzuka, when Jack made the mistake of forgetting to close the wing of the DRS system before the 1st turn of a difficult Japanese highway.

      In Miami, Duane dropped out of the race in the first part of qualifying for the sprint due to the fault of the team, and in the main qualifying weekend he was ahead of Gasly, but dropped out of the race due to damage to his car in the starting rush. And although he was just the victim of an incident that was not his fault, it did not affect his future fate.

      In this situation, it is worth recalling the words of James Vaulz, the head of Williams, said at the pre-season presentation of the new FW47 car.

      "I hope that Franco will race for Alpine in a while,– Vaulz said at the time. – That's why we let him go – because I want him to race in 2025 and/or 2026. Alpine has the best chance of that, so now he's on this team. And I don't think it's going to hurt Jack's career at all.

      I hope he succeeds, but ultimately Franco remains my driver, and I want him to race... in time, he will return to Williams. I can't say exactly how much time will pass. But I repeat, he will return to Williams at some point."

      As British journalist Chris Medland writes in his text on the pages of Racer, "I would be surprised if Oakes' resignation is related specifically to the decision to change the team... Even from the outside it was clear that at some stage Colapinto would get a place at the wheel, especially since Flavio Briatore signed the contract with him. If the Alpine Executive Advisor is talking about something, then it becomes a reality.…

      Clearly, Oakes understood this... but there were no signs of his impending retirement. Briatore insists that they have a good relationship, and the reason for Oliver's departure is not related to any disagreements.

      Regardless of whether these reasons become known or not, the team is definitely going through another tumultuous week, and there is no need to talk about any stability."

      However, in the recent history of the Enstone team, there have been so many strange turns that defied unequivocal explanations that it will soon cease to surprise so much.