New Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes reckons that the Enstone squad was in need of someone to “take a bullet for the team” and fully commit to its management - and believes he has brought that quality.
The Briton was installed as the team principal when former incumbent Bruno Famin stepped down, as Alpine sought to end a cycle of managerial upheaval over the past few seasons. Oakes followed former chief Flavio Briatore through the door, as the Italian became an advisor to Renault CEO Luca de Meo.
Asked by Autosport if he joined the team with any specific goals to impart upon the team, Oakes stated that he had no ‘preconceived ideas’ in starting his new role.
He added that this allowed him to start from a clean sheet of paper, with an aim to give those working under him at Alpine clear leadership and vision from the top.
“I think you come with your own ethos and approach in terms of how you feel you need to build that trust, that unity, and stability back in the team,” Oakes said.
“So the main thing I came with really was a sort of clean sheet of paper of right, you know, ‘where are we at now? What things have we done right? What haven’t we done right?’ And I dare say you also want to listen a bit as well to some of that.
“It’s a pretty special place at Enstone, I keep saying it, but there is a lot of knowledge there, it’s been in F1 a long, long time, as Flavio keeps reminding me daily.
“But because of that, it knows what it’s doing, it just genuinely needs some leadership and it needs support. And I think now, I’m going to say this because it’s on my shoulders, but I think it’s actually got a clear vision now and clear leadership. With me and Flavio there, we’re committed.
“And I think that’s the biggest thing I wanted to bring really, that there’s someone there who takes the bullet for the team, gives them the support and the direction they need.
“That was my only real sort of vision before starting. I actually felt it needed that, it needed someone there who was a racer, who understood what everybody was going through. I’ve just got to deliver, haven’t I?”
Speaking about the team’s progress, Oakes explained that it was buoyed by point-scoring results at Spa and Zandvoort, something that he feels showed great progress from Alpine’s lowly position at the start of the year.
“The parts we brought to Spar and onto Zandvoort were quite a good uplift for us. That was very, very positive, particularly from where the team started at the beginning of the season.
“I think full credit to [the team] for that. We plan between now and the end of the year to bring a couple more. It’s sort of hard to balance now when you bring them a bit later because we’re on the back foot at the beginning of the season.
“At the end of the day, we want to continue that sort of recovery from the beginning of the year.”
The biggest uncertainty in the camp concerns the 2026 power unit, with the Renault project in Viry to be abandoned in favour of a Mercedes customer supply, although the arrangement has not be formally confirmed.
“There’s obviously certain sensitive topics at the moment!,” said Oakes. “I think they’ve been spoken about a lot. I think what hasn’t been spoken about much is about what we plan to do at Enstone, by the same sort of token, really.
“Viry is undergoing a bit of an assessment of the project. And the same things going on at Enstone.
“We need to understand, actually, where we are good, where we need to improve, and also what changes need to be made as a small sort of evolution and step forward, particularly as we are coming into that transition now, with ’26 on the horizon. It’s a pretty big time in F1 at the moment.
“And I think, from my point of view, it’s quite fortunate to have landed straight after the shutdown that I think I’ve got a bit of time to influence the direction we’re going in, and make sure what happened the beginning of the year, and sort of decisions that were made last summer that caused that problem that we try to mitigate that.
“Because at the end of the day, this team hasn’t forgotten how to build a good race car and to go racing. It’s done that through every cycle of regulations, which is pretty impressive, really.”
“I think was quite a good uplift for us, particularly made me look good being in the points on my first weekend!,” he said.
“But I think that was very, very positive, particularly from where the team started the beginning of the season. Full credit to them for that.
“We plan between now and the end of the year to bring a couple more [updates]. We definitely will bring a little bit more performance between now and the end of the year.
“At the end of the day, we want to continue I’d say that sort of recovery from the beginning of the year.”
