Brother of former Alpine's principal who resigned this week was arrested with "large amounts of cash"

Last Wednesday, Alpine's Formula 1 team announced a big change: Franco Colapinto would take Jack Doohan's place as main driver for the next five races. It came hours after Team Principal, Oliver Oakes, mysteriously resigned, due to personal reasons.

Today, it has been known that Oliver's brother, William Oakes, had been arrested one week earlier, for "transferring criminal property". He was stopped in the Silverstone Park area in Northamptonshire on May 1 with "a large amount of cash" and was put into custody. A week later, Oliver resigned.

It is unknown if Oliver's unexpected resignation happened because of his brother's arrest, but the timing is strange. And Flavio Briatore, Alpine Executive Advisor who will temporarily take his duties, had denied that Oliver had resigned because of a rift between the two, saying on Instagram that "me and Oli have a very good relationship and had long-term ambitions to drive this team forward together. We respect Oli's request to resign and have therefore accepted his resignation. The reasons are not related to the team and are of a personal nature."

Oakes family has been connected with Dimitry Mazepin, a Russian businessmen closely linked to Vladimir Putin, and father of former F1 driver Nikita Mazepin. Mazepin was stakeholder of Hitech GP, a team launched by Oliver Oakes in 2015, but Mazepin's shares were relinquished to Oakes in March 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.