With his 36 years and his unconditional love of this sport, “the only thing (he) really knows how to do”Oliver Oakes found himself in the spotlight in recent weeks, when he was named team principal of Alpine, replacing Bruno Famin, who had held this role since the summer of 2023. In a stormy period between numerous executive departures, the stopping of the Renault engine from 2026 and the inexorable sporting downgrade, the Enstone team discovered the methods of its new boss, who took the time to adapt to this new environment.
“Toto said something quite funny”Oakes told F1 media. “He said, ‘It’s good to have some new blood among us dinosaurs!’ » I was dying of laughter, it was nice of him to be so welcoming. People at home don’t often get to see this part of F1 – how close people are, how so many people have come up through the ranks together in different ways. I think it’s really cool. »
Oakes, like in F2, but bigger
Second youngest team principal in F1 history behind Christian Horner, Oliver Oakes had until then been accustomed to karting, of which he was world champion in 2005, but especially to single-seaters, since he co-founded Hitech Grand Prix in 2015, and is evolving his team at great speed by developing it and bringing it to all the leading championships, from F2 to British F4 and F3. Taking up his position last August within the flocked A arrowed stable, Oakes quickly realized that it was the same job lower down in the categories, but that it covered even more perimeter.
“A lot of it is about people and performance”he assures. “I smile because no matter the category, these are the two fundamental things. Obviously there are a lot more things to do in F1. I never want to be condescending, but F1 is much more complex, especially when it comes to timelines for improvement and change. »
Moving from one-make formulas to Formula 1 teaches patience, the gains in performance to be achieved being enormous, but according to a timetable that is generally quite long. “Some things are the same as in juniors – you have a weekend where you struggle to fit the front tires and the following weekend you have done a lot of work at the factory to try to improve the situation. Then there are very different and much more important things, whether it’s a component of the car that we know we want to improve for next year but is taking a long time to get right, and it’s different. I would say it’s as expected. »
Associated with Flavio Briatore at the helm of the team, Oliver Oakes also expressed his happiness at working alongside such a motivated boy with experience that he does not have. “It’s great to work with him, to be able to bounce off his ideas”he declares. “F1 has changed, but the basic principles are the same. I think he’s very good at reminding me of that. When you’re new, you can go too far in the other direction, so it’s useful. » All that remains for the duo is to confirm all these good words with concrete results on the track, so that Alpine at least regains its usual standards.
READ ALSO > Oliver Oakes calm about the scale of the task at Alpine: “Everyone dreams of managing an F1 team”
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