Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon reflect on Alpine naming Oliver Oakes as new F1 team principal and the challenges he has.
Over the summer break, Alpine announced Hitech GP founder Oakes as its new F1 team principal, taking over from Bruno Famin. He is another to join the French outfit in recent times, who have brought in Flavio Briatore as a consultant too.
The team is undergoing another change and is in thick of things where the group of employees protested against the recent idea of ending the Renault power unit programme. Oakes has a big task at his hand where he has to push Alpine forward in the standings.
He started with at Zandvoort where Gasly managed to score a point, but it was difficult in Monza for the team. The Frenchman has had the chance to speak with Oakes not just in the period he has been with the team, but from before as well in junior formulae.
“Yeah, we chatted over the summer,” said Gasly to media. “I have known Ollie for some years already because obviously he’s been working in younger formulae. We actually came to a couple of chats over the last few years, but obviously now into a new role, it’s quite a big change and a new environment for him to get used to.
“I know him, I know his qualities, I know his capabilities and I’m very much looking forward to working with him. I think it’s it’s part of my job to obviously highlight him and give my feedback as a driver on what we do well and what we should improve. Because there’s obviously stuff we do very well in areas where I feel we were lacking or we could be slightly more efficient and I think it’s obviously going to happen over the next few weeks.
“We already discussed about a couple of things, but there is more to go in details. And I think it’s important he gets the 360 degree views from everyone really involved in the team. Obviously, us as drivers are impactful on many different areas and sometimes have a slightly bigger overview, compared to some other people in the team and it’s definitely going to be very important,” summed up Gasly.
The Frenchman knows that it will be a process for Oakes to embed himself in and go about things. He is not hurrying and considering that he knows the person, Gasly is optimistic that he can deliver and that’s why he is looking forward to working with him.
“I think it’s going to be a process, of course. I’m not really worried because we obviously know this season, we’re not fighting for much to be fair, and I have a much more kind of longer, like sort of more looking at 2025 and 2026,” continued Gasly. “So I think it gives us time to make a few adjustments and make sure that he’s got time to settle in.
“And we still got time to actually impact the performance of next season and 2026. So yeah it’s going to take some time obviously for him but I’m confident it will go smoothly. Knowing Oli I know he’s very objective, being a driver himself as well. He can understand both sides from the driving point of view, a driver side of things, and also more like a management type of thing.
“So I think it’s going to be definitely very interesting to work with him and he’s been proven to do some very good stuff over the last few years and there’s no surprises he got this opportunity. I am looking forward to work with him,” summed up Gasly. Teammate Ocon shared his thoughts too on the new boss, with whom he will spend less time.
Like Gasly, he has had met Oakes previously as well. He doesn’t know how the future will shape for Alpine, but the Frenchman had good words for the new boss. “I believe everything happened pretty quickly, but obviously those high-level decisions, we as drivers and many of the team members don’t know really what’s going on behind the scenes,” he said.
“But yeah Oliver has been somebody that I’ve met some time ago now. He was looking after a kid that I was looking after as well. So we’re talking about that quite a lot. He’s someone that knows the drivers very well. He’s been a driver himself. And he has a lot of experience, obviously, in motor sport.
“So, yeah, I wish him the best of luck. And obviously, yeah, we’re going to be working for the rest of the year together. He’s going to have a lot, for sure, a lot of work. A head joining mid-season is not an easy task, but he’s somebody of such a calibre that I’m sure he will find his way very quickly.”
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