Oli Oakes exclusive: Life with Briatore and how Alpine’s new structure works

Alpine team boss Oli Oakes has explained how Flavio Briatore is serving as a type of F1 ‘mentor’ as he adjusts to life in the spotlight of Formula 1.

Oakes landed his first Formula 1 job during the summer of 2024, as Alpine moved to appoint the British former racing driver turned junior team owner as the replacement for Bruno Famin as the team goes through a transitionary phase.

Oli Oakes explains Alpine management structure for F1 2025

With Alpine opting for a change of direction as Famin stepped back to look after the reorganisation of the Viry-Chatillon power unit manufacturing facility following Renault’s decision to stop making F1 engines after 2025, Hitech GP founder Oli Oakes was given the nod to succeed Famin.

Hitech, a successful junior category team with squads in Formula 2 and Formula 3, amongst others, has been a successful proving ground as to the prowess of Oakes as a businessman with managerial nous, with the 36-year-old assuming control of Alpine for the second half of the F1 2024 season.

In the months since, however, it’s clear that Alpine executive director Flavio Briatore – the former team boss at Enstone – commands great authority in his role reporting to Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo.

More than twice Oakes’ age, Briatore has seen every success and failure possible during a long and storied F1 history that stems back to the 1980s – he oversaw Michael Schumacher’s first titles in 1994 and ’95 at the Benetton team before returning Renault to the front in the mid-2000s as Fernando Alonso won in 2005 and ’06.

Sitting with us for an exclusive interview at the conclusion of the F1 2024 season, Oakes explained how the leadership hierarchy at Alpine is working at present.

“Yeah, I mean Flavio is above everyone,” he told PlanetF1.com.

“He’s been there, done it, got the t-shirt and I think it’s very clear that the alignment there between me, Flavio, and Luca.

“The three of us are in everything together. There’s no organisation chart, there’s no power play, it’s really transparent and I think probably that was something missing maybe before as well.

“From my side, I’m the man on the ground – whether that’s at the factory or here on track.

“But I think you can see Flavio is at most races. He’s at Enstone a couple of days a week as well.

“I guess, if you look at teams in F1 that have been successful over the years, there’s been a really strong leadership and they’ve been really aligned.”

Examples of other teams with a leadership structure with more than one figurehead are McLaren, with CEO Zak Brown and team boss Andrea Stella, as well as Racing Bulls competing under CEO Peter Bayer and team boss Laurent Mekies.

Such division of labour works, Oakes believes, as long as there’s a commonality in terms of approach across the figureheads.

“Our structure is no different now to a couple of other teams on the grid – there’s the three of us here, you’ve got Luca [de Meo] as CEO of [the] group, you’ve got Flavio [Briatore], as executive advisor, and me as team principal,” he said.

“I think, really, titles don’t mean much. It’s whether the three of you are aligned in the direction you’re going.”

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Given Briatore’s seniority – both in terms of age and position – does Oakes view the Italian as a type of mentor as he cuts his teeth in his Formula 1 role? After all, given Briatore’s experience, there aren’t many more canny operators from whom Oakes could learn from.

“Yeah, he might say that! Sometimes he gives me a clip around the ear, though! No, I’m joking,” Oakes laughed.

“Look, he’s been in this team twice, and twice he’s turned it around. I think that experience, that passion he has, is something that’s infectious.

“I think, obviously, F1 has changed quite a bit over the years, but the basics are the same.

“You need great people, you need to produce a good car, and you need to make sure, for everything you do, that the first thing is you’re going racing and everything else is secondary.

“I think having him with me helps to support that, because it is a big job – it’s 900-odd people and 24 races.

“It’s not a one-man show and we’ve also got David [Sanchez] as our technical director who joined just before me as well. We’ve announced Dave Greenwood as racing director.

“I think it’s not just, at the very top, me, Flavio, and Luca. There are two or three as well under me there, who are also part of that leadership group.

“That’s exactly what’s needed to have a strong team and everyone working together as well.”

There are striking similarities between Oakes and Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. Not only is Oakes the youngest team boss to start in Formula 1 since Horner, who started as a wet-behind-the-ears rookie at 31-years-old in 2005, but both have similar backgrounds in having started as racing drivers before turning to the world of business and establishing racing teams.

While Oakes continues to run Hitech, Horner – together with his father Garry – established the Arden Motorsport squad which led to his first contact with Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko – the Austrian being the person to suggest to Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz that Horner would be a natural leader for Red Bull Racing.

Briatore, who made similar recommendations to De Meo about Oakes’ potential, is therefore something of a Marko-figure for Oakes, who agreed with the comparison when put to him.

“I think there’s probably a little bit of that,” he said.

“I think a lot of people always want to talk about the similarities between me and Christian, Helmut and Flavio.

“They’ve been a very successful organisation over at Red Bull.

“Probably there are some similarities and we’re different as well – what works somewhere, doesn’t always work somewhere else.

“From my side, it’s just really simple that the three of us work together and the most important thing is, does the chemistry between us work? Do we all get on? And we do.

“I feel really fortunate because at the end of the day, I’m not alone and I think that’s one thing in F1 now – it is complex, there is politics, there are people to deal with, there is a car to develop and I really think that’s something that’s actually a real strength of the team probably from the middle of the season through to now that people are getting energy from.”

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