New Alpine boss 'well-known' to Red Bull senior figures

New Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes is "well-known" to Red Bull senior figures, with the 36-year-old being a former junior driver for the outfit. 

As revealed by Sky Sports F1's Ted Kravitz, Oakes is often seen in the F1 paddock with Red Bull team principal Christian Horner and advisor Dr. Helmut Marko. 

Oakes defeated the likes of Valtteri Bottas and Jules Bianchi to the 2005 world karting championship, and was signed by Red Bull as a junior driver alongside Sebastian Vettel, Sebastian Buemi, Jaime Alguersuari and Brendon Hartley.

The new Alpine boss moved to single-seater racing in 2006, with his short career having ended in 2010 as his focused switched to management in 2011. 

During his short single-seater career, he competed against the likes of Sergio Perez, Esteban Gutierrez, Alexander Rossi and Jean-Eric Vergne.

Since switching to management, Oakes has helped form the successful Hitech Grand Prix, who are represented in F2, F3 and F4, as well as other European categories.

Oakes has helped several current and former Red Bull junior drivers by fielding them in Hitech GP, including Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar to name two.

“He’s an ex-Red Bull young driver, he won the World Karting Championship in 2005, a kind of contemporary of Valtteri Bottas, that kind of era of driver," Kravitz said on the Sky Sports F1 podcast.

“And I’ve seen him around the place with Christian Horner and Helmut Marko, because he runs many of the Red Bull junior drivers in the lower formulas. 

"So Oakes does a lot of work with Helmut Marko and Christian Horner in what they do with their young drivers. So he’s well-known to those two."

Zero F1 experience

Oakes had previously attempted to get Hitech GP into F1, with the outfit having applied for the 11th F1 team slot at the same time as Andretti. 

Hitech GP were not granted FIA permission, unlike Andretti, but according to Kravitz were informed that it was not a "no" forever. 

Whilst it is not with Hitech GP, Oakes has at least made the personal jump to F1 with Alpine, a category he has no experience of. 

There are interesting differences between Oakes and Audi's new team principal Jonathan Wheatley. Oakes has lots of team principal experience but no F1 experience, whilst Red Bull's sporting director has significant F1 experience but no zero team boss experience.  

“In a sense, I don’t suppose we should be surprised, because with his Hitech Grand Prix organisation, he did apply, along with Andretti Global, to get an entry into Formula 1," Kravitz said.

“Now, it was only Andretti who were granted permission by the FIA, Hitech were told, ‘not now, but not never, go back and have a think and strengthen up your bid and then come back.’ And of course, we know what’s happened since with Formula 1, saying that there’s no room at the inn for Andretti.

“But Oakes is a ambitious guy. He’s used to being a team principal, which is where he differs from Jonathan Wheatley, and it’s just never been a team principal in Formula 1, and unlike Wheatley, and they’re quite interesting comparisons, Oakes has never directly had a job in Formula 1.

“But he does have experience of being a team principal. He runs teams very successfully in Formula 2, Formula 3 and Formula 4, and has tried to get into Formula 1."