Explained: Who is Oliver Oakes, the rookie F1 boss Alpine has entrusted its future to?

Oliver Oakes has been appointed as Bruno Famin’s replacement as Alpine’s F1 team boss.

Oliver Oakes will be the second-youngest F1 team boss in the history of the sport when he takes over Alpine for the second half of 2024.

While just 36 years old, Oliver Oakes commands a long history of team leadership as he moves into Formula 1 as the new team boss of Alpine after this year’s summer break.

Who is Oliver Oakes, Alpine’s latest F1 team boss?

The latest person to move into the role as Alpine’s F1 team boss is 36-year-old Oliver Oakes, who takes up the position after this year’s summer break as the Renault Group opts for a revolution in leadership.

Last year, Alpine vice-president of motorsport Bruno Famin took over the position as Otmar Szafnauer and Renault parted ways after less than two years. Famin initially became team boss in an interim capacity, before assuming the role permanently before the 2024 championship began.

But, with Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo hiring former Benetton/Renault team boss Flavio Briatore to serve as an executive advisor, the move has led to further changes as speculation swirls about the future of Renault’s F1 engine operation facility at Viry-Chatillon in France.

Whether Famin saw the writing on the wall for his future as F1 team boss and chose to step aside or whether he was going to be removed from the post anyway isn’t clear, but Famin will finish work with the F1 team by the end of August 2024 and, instead, will take up responsibility for the transformation of the Viry project as Alpine looks to the future with a customer engine supply.

In Famin’s place will be Oakes, who takes over the leadership of Alpine’s F1 team at Enstone. Aged 36, Oakes is the second-youngest-ever F1 team boss – the only younger person to lead an F1 team is his Red Bull counterpart Christian Horner, who stepped up to lead Red Bull under team owner Dietrich Mateschitz in 2005 when just 31 years old.

There are some striking similarities between Oakes and Horner in the nature of how they stepped up into Formula 1 – particularly as both have been instrumental in establishing successful junior category racing teams and allowed them to build a name for themselves in team management.

While Horner did so with his Arden International teams over 20 years ago, having stepped back from trying to make it as a racing driver in his own right, Oakes set up his own team – Hitech Grand Prix – after making a similar decision to Horner by retiring from racing.

There’s even some overlap between Horner and Oakes in that Oakes was briefly signed to the Red Bull junior driver programme, having attracted the attention of Mateschitz and Helmut Marko in 2006.

Oliver Oakes: The racing driver

Born in January 1988, Oakes is the son of Billy Oakes – himself being the founder and owner of another racing team Eurotek Motorsport. Eurotek raced in Formula Renault and British F3, operated by a European automotive parts company based out of California.

Immediately immersed in the world of motorsport, Oakes proved highly proficient at karting and became a two-time British Open karting champion and, by 2005, beat prominent contemporaries like Valtteri Bottas and Jules Bianchi to become the karting world champion.

This led to Red Bull taking note of him, signing him to their programme alongside future F1 World Champion and Red Bull star Sebastian Vettel, as well as Brendon Hartley and Sebastien Buemi.

He moved up to car racing in 2006 with Red Bull’s backing, debuting in Formula BMW with Carlin Motorsport, having prepared during the winter with outings in Formula Renault 2.0 Winter Series.

Pole and victory at the first round at Brands Hatch proved something of a false dawn, with no similar highs during the rest of the campaign, but sixth place overall was still enough to earn Oakes a nomination for the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award.

Moving to Formula Renault Eurocup and the North European Cup for 2007, Oakes joined Motopark and scored five podiums in the latter series en route to fourth overall and 12th in the former.

Having lost his Red Bull backing by this point, Oakes joined his father’s team Eurotek for a run in British F3 in 2008. Pole position for the final round at Donington was the only highlight of a campaign with little to celebrate and, with momentum flagging in his driving career, his 2009 season proved sporadic.

Joining Carlin (with Daniel Ricciardo as a teammate), Oakes left the team after just two races due to contractual difficulties. For 2010, he was offered a life in GP3 as he joined Atech CRS under team boss David Hayle, but a run to 28th place overall wasn’t enough to keep his momentum up as a racing driver.

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Oliver Oakes: The motorsport team boss

Having realised a dream racing driver career was out of reach, Oakes set up a karting team and driver management service in 2011. ‘Team Oakes’ came into being with prominent names signed like Callum Ilott, Nikita Mazepin, Clement Novalak, and Marcus Armstrong.

Team Oakes took part in top-level karting championships, including the CIK-FIA World and European Championships.

But it was Oakes’ next foray which would propel him to prominence. Hitech Racing had been set up by Hayle in 2002, and had raced in various junior categories over the intervening decade – including British F3 amongst several other national F3 series, and a solitary year in GP2 in 2005.

Oakes partnered up with Hayles in 2015, rebranding the operation to become Hitech Grand Prix. The team currently competes in F2, F3, and the F3 Asian Championship, as well as having operated the racing on behalf of W Series and the FIA Motorsport Games.

Prominent names who currently race for Hitech are Paul Aron and Amaury Cordeel in F2, with Luke Browning, Martinius Stenshorne, James Wharton, and Cian Shields in Formula 3.

In the past, George Russell has also driven for Hitech, as have Jake Hughes, Alexander Sims, and Dan Ticktum.

But, with Alpine yet to confirm its second driver for 2025, two names stand out as alumni of Hitech – former Haas F1 driver Nikita Mazepin, whose father Dmitry’s Uralkali company was a particularly prominent financial backer on Mazepin’s climb into F1 in 2021, as well as current Alpine reserve Jack Doohan as the Australian is mooted for the second seat at Enstone.

Oakes will take over the running of Alpine ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix after the summer shutdown has concluded and will report to Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo, with Briatore also something of a commanding figure over Oakes through his presence as executive advisor.

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