Photo: Alpine
Hitech GP owner and team principal Oliver Oakes will switch from the world of junior single-seaters to Formula 1 next month as he becomes Alpine’s team principal.
“I’m extremely grateful to [Renault Group CEO] Luca de Meo and Flavio Briatore for this opportunity to lead Alpine F1 Team back to competitiveness,” said Oakes.
“The team has talented people and excellent resources at its core, and I am confident that we can accomplish a great deal together during the remainder of this season and the longer term. I look forward to getting started after the summer break.”
Hitech has not announced who will succeed Oakes as team principal, with 10 days until the team’s next races.
The 36-year-old is a former racing driver himself, racing primarily on the British single-seater scene. First he competed in Formula Renault 2.0 UK as a Red Bull junior (a status he earned from winning the World Karting Championship), then the equivalent Formula BMW championship in 2006 before joining Motopark the year after to go continental in the FR Eurocup. He came 12th in the 2007 standings with a best finish of fifth.
He stepped up to British Formula 3 part-time in 2008 with Carlin and came 19th in the championship, did two rounds of the 2009 season with the team then contested the inaugural season of GP3 (now known as the FIA F3 Championship) in 2010 and despite five top-10 finishes he failed to score and was 28th in the standings.
In 2015, the 27-year-old Oakes founded Hitech GP. He had known David Hayle, who co-founded Hitech Racing in 2002, from a young age and wanted to launch a team of his own after seeing some of the young drivers he helped have their potential unfulfilled elsewhere.
Two FIA European F3 appearances in 2015 preluded a full campaign the next year, where it finished second in the teams’ standings and third in the driver’s championship with George Russell. Since then the team has expanded into Formula 2, Regional and 4, winning races in each category it has competed in. Under Oakes’ watch, Hitech has won five FRegional Asia titles (including a Winter Series crown), two GB3 championships and ran Alex Dunne to the 2022 British F4 title.
Uralkali, chaired by former Hitech driver Nikita Mazepin’s father Dmitry, Fungosa Management Limited (which owns trademarks for Nikita Mazepin) and Bergton Management Limited were majority shareholders in Hitech before Oakes reclaimed full control of the team in 2022.
By June 2023 he had already relinquished that position as Hitech Global Holdings, the owning company of Hitech GP, announced a 25% sale of shares to Vladimir Kim, a billionaire who made his wealth in mining. His investment was to support Oakes’ bid to take Hitech into F1.
However those ambitions have not been realised, and on July 17 this year Oakes restructured Hitech, with ownership of both the junior single-seater team and Hitech 26 – the project group “responsible for advancing the team’s F1 ambitions” – being transferred to him directly rather than via a holding company. No reason has been given for the change.