Former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher has lashed out at Alpine saying that the team has completely lost its way, citing the way it handled his nephew Mick's 'shootout' with Jack Doohan as an example.
Having lost his seat with Haas at the end of 2022, Mick Schumacher was believed to be in the running for a full-time seat at Alpine next season after the departure of Esteban Ocon from the French team's line-up.
Doohan is currently reserve driver for Alpine while Mick serves the same role at Mercedes while also driving for Alpine's WEC team. It came down to a showdown between the pair in a private test at Paul Ricard in July.
Given that the team subsequently announced that it was signing Doohan to a one year contract to drive for them in 2025 it appears that the Australian came out top on that day, leaving Mick frustrated to lose out again.
But now his uncle, former Jordan, Williams, and Toyota driver Ralf Schumacher, has fired a broadside accusing Alpine of rigging the test, and adding that the team is currently in a mess as a whole.
“Mick drove in the afternoon and Jack in the morning,” Schumacher told Sky Sports Germany this week. “I’ve been there myself. If you drove at nine o'clock, you're two and a half seconds faster because it's 38 degrees in the afternoon, and there's wind.
“If you approach a test like that, you have to doubt that they took it seriously," he fumed. "I think it’s a shame, because it’s just not fair and because nobody else gets the chance.”
Even Doohan suggested that he felt there was something not quite right at the time about the way the shootout had gone down. “It was strange. For me," he told the media at Zandvoort.
"I kept it business. I didn’t think of it in any other way. At the end of the day I’m going to hop into the car and drive as fast as I can, it doesn’t matter who is next to me.
“It doesn't mean I’m going to be any different outside of the car," he added. "When I hop in, I have the mindset to be as fast as I can.
"At the end of the day, whatever the outcome was of that, I positioned myself to make sure I was first in line to get this seat regardless of who was next to me," he said. "I’m grateful that the patience paid off."
Meanwhile Ralf was also unhappy by the way that Alpine announced the news of Doohan's signing on social media without giving Mick the courtesy of a heads-up about the outcome first.
“That’s absolutely not the way!” he said, adding that it was symptomatic of the way Alpine was being run at the moment, including a revolving door of team principals over the last year from Otmar Szafnauer to Bruno Famin and now Oliver Oakes.
The return of Flavio Briatore as the team's executive advisor to Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo is the latest big shakeup for the team, along with plans to drop its engine programme and switch to customer Mercedes power units in future.
“You can just say that the team has completely lost its way at the moment anyway," Ralf said. “People are being thrown out, thrown back in and so on, Flavio is kind of floating above it.”
Perhaps Mick had a lucky escape in not getting the nod from Alpine. But it does leave him with limited options for returning to racing next year, with a open seat at Sauber/Audi and a decision to be made at RB being the last opportunities.
“In the end, for my part, I am not giving up,” Mick said. “There are still two seats open and so we have to keep working and pushing, hopefully with a good result at the end of the year.
"You've already been able to see what I can do, and internally the teams know that too.”
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