Who is new Alpine F1 team principal Oliver Oakes?

Oliver Oakes has been named as Alpine’s new team principal as the revolving managerial door at the Enstone-and-Viry-based outfit is halted once again.

He becomes the third person to occupy the role since the start of last season, following Otmar Szafnauer and Bruno Famin – the latter stepping down less than a year after making his interim tenure permanent.

The team principal position is far from the only one to have seen change in the past three years, with the top brass at Alpine seemingly chopping and changing on a yearly basis.

But that has changed since the arrival of former boss Flavio Briatore in an advisory role, though his presence in the press release announcing Oakes’ appointment suggests he is far more integrated than perhaps would be expected.

So with Oakes at the helm and Mercedes engines expected to take over from in-house Renault in the coming years, who is the man tasked with turning things around?

A Red Bull Junior Team protege

Oakes has been surrounded by racing since an early age, given his father’s links to the sport. Billy Oakes was the founder and owner of former Formula Renault and British F3 outfit Eurotek Motorsport.

By the age of 12, Oakes was a two-time British Open karting champion, and at 17, he became karting world champion, beating off the likes of Valtteri Bottas, Jules Bianchi and Edoardo Mortara. That led to him being picked up by Red Bull’s illustrious young driver programme.

At the time, Oakes would have been with Red Bull alongside former F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel, as well as WEC champions Brendon Hartley and Sebastien Buemi.

A move to Formula BMW followed, where Oakes took pole and the victory in his first race and finishing sixth at the end of the season would earn a nomination for what was then the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award [now the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award].

But whilst moves to British F3 and GP3 came, his racing career never flourished quite how it threatened and he stepped away from the cockpit to take up what has to date been a successful managerial career.

Leading Hitech Grand Prix

Oakes’ tenure at the helm of Hitech is perhaps the most well-known of his management career, but he has been responsible for some of the brightest young talents in motorsport from a much earlier age.

Team Oakes Racing was formed in 2011 to take on the karting ranks, with Callum Ilott and Marcus Armstrong the most notable…