Alpine’s new team boss Oli Oakes has revealed how the “timing was right” for him to take a role in F1, after having other opportunities arise in recent years.

Oakes was appointed as the new team boss at Alpine six months ago, replacing Bruno Famin as the Enstone-based squad went through a period of revitalisation.

Oli Oakes: Alpine opportunity was ‘good timing’

Oakes becoming a team boss in Formula 1 marked what seemed to be an eventual inevitability that he would end up in the sport in some capacity.

The 37-year-old had been linked to Formula 1 in recent years through his running of his Hitech GP racing team – which races in Formula 2 and Formula 3 – with the outfit having applied to the FIA’s invitation for prospective teams to enter Formula 1 for 2026.

Hitech’s F1 ambitions had been linked closely with the Mazepin family, with Dmitry Mazepin a long-time partner of Hitech. The squad ran Nikita Mazepin through most of his junior career, with the team backed by Uralkali.

Oakes’ proficiency at running the Hitech led to Renault CEO Luca de Meo and executive advisor Flavio Briatore appointing Oakes as team boss.

With Alpine finding stability and upward momentum towards the end of the 2024 season, Oakes sat down with us for an exclusive interview in which the new team boss – the second-youngest in the sport’s history behind Christian Horner in 2005 – outlined why he has ended up as team boss at the Enstone squad.

“I didn’t really have a plan!” he told PlanetF1.com.

“People always expect me to go, ‘Yeah, it was my dream to do that’.

“I guess you’d have to ask Luca and Flavio, wouldn’t you? I think, on my side, obviously, I had my racing career. I then had my other side of the fence as a team owner, a bit of entrepreneurial background of starting a team and running that, and then obviously growing that into a team across different series and championships. So the balance of wanting to win, but building a business.

“Then, obviously, the opportunities in F1 over the last couple of years that were put on the table, I think some that came earlier, the timing wasn’t right, the fit.

“When this one came up, it was good timing for me. Happy wife, happy life, a little bit of that!

“Obviously, Enstone is a great team. Everything that Luca and Flavio put forward, we’re all on the same page. I think that’s probably the biggest thing really is that when you do lead an F1 team, it obviously is a privilege and you can maybe jump at the first thing that comes up.

“But, also, you need to know if the chemistry would be right as well and I think hopefully time will tell.”

Asked what it is about management that he enjoys, Oakes joked, “It’s the horrible bit! It’s the bit nobody likes, dealing with people!”

Turning serious, he said, “Obviously I like going racing, I love being at the track, and I love the factory.

“In F1, it’s slightly different, you’re not just extracting performance from cars that you, in effect, have to run within championships – in F1, you’re designing, you’re manufacturing, you’re developing, that’s something that is exciting as well.”

With Oakes boasting a long career as a racing driver, in which he was even briefly a Red Bull junior in 2006/2007 as he eyed up Formula 1, his background as a racer and team owner – similar to that of Horner – marks him out from may of the current crop of team bosses – many of whom come from technical or engineering backgrounds as opposed to business.

More on F1’s team bosses

👉 F1 team principals: How long has each team boss been in charge?

👉 F1 team principals’ rich list: Net worth figures revealed for Wolff, Horner and more

Does Oakes believe this sets him apart from his contemporaries?

“I think I’m slightly fortunate in that when you’ve had your own team and you’ve grown that and the era of F3 I was in in 2016 and ‘17 where it was the last series in the world where you could develop a race car, have a wind tunnel program, there are a lot of similarities there to F1 on a much smaller scale,” he said.

“But I’d never actually claim to be technical or engineering. I think you have a good nous for good people and you trust those people and you support them and you have to have a good bullshit filter as well!

“But, quite often, I think that experience I’ve had in the junior ladder is good because it’s very varied. You’ve dealt with drivers, you’ve dealt with the unsexy bits of the business – HR, legal, and finance.

“Today, F1 isn’t just about the race car, everything goes into it. I think every person’s different who leads a team. I think every team principal’s background now in F1 is really varied.

“You’ve got some who’ve got skin in the game, owning a team or shares in a team.

“You’ve got some who are ex-engineers who’ve risen to the top. For me, I don’t see any particular one as being stronger or weaker.

“I actually think it’s more important those around you, depending on your skill, who else you surround yourself with. I’ve always believed in having good people and letting them get on with it.”

Read Next: Max Verstappen’s stance revealed as FIA warn drivers of swearing ‘bans’