Alpine has confirmed Oliver Oakes will take over from Bruno Famin in charge of its Formula 1 team at the end of August.
Oakes, 36, will become the youngest current principal of a Formula 1 team. The former racing driver currently runs Hitech, which he founded in 2015, and now competes in Formula 2, Formula 3, GB3 and British Formula 4.
He will report to Renault CEO Luca de Meo. “It is a pleasure to welcome Oli to the team and for him to become one of the youngest team principals that this sport has ever seen,” he said.
“This team is being built for future success and this is highlighted by Oli’s appointment in a senior role.”
Alpine has endured a difficult start to the 2024 season and lies eighth in the championship. Bruno Famin, who took over as team principal a year ago, confirmed last week he is standing down as the team considers abandoning plans to build its own power unit for 2026.
Oakes said he is “extremely grateful to Luca de Meo and Flavio Briatore for this opportunity to lead BWT Alpine F1 Team back to competitiveness. The team has talented people and excellent resources at its core, and I am confident that we can accomplish a great deal together during the remainder of this season and the longer term. I look forward to getting started after the summer break.”
He will be Alpine’s fifth different team principal since Renault rebranded its works team at the beginning of 2021. Cyril Abiteboul was replaced by Davide Brivio than year, before the team hired Otmar Szafnauer the following season. The team’s management replaced Szafnauer with Famin 12 months ago.
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Oakes won the World Karting Championship in 2005 and joined Red Bull’s young driver programme the following year. He ended his driving career in 2009 after competing in Formula Renault Eurocup and British Formula 3, then went into driver coaching.
That led Oakes to set up his own junior single-seater team in 2015 under the name Hitech. The following year his team took George Russell to third place in the European Formula 3 championship, behind the dominant Prema cars of Lance Stroll and Maximilian Guenther.
Oakes also ran a car for Nikita Mazepin, whose father Dmitri’s company Uralkali invested in the team. Mazepin returned to Hitech when the team entered Formula 2 in 2020, the year before he graduated to F1. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to sanctions being imposed on the Mazepins and Hitech terminated…
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