Alpine boss Oliver Oakes has hailed the support that parent company Renault brings to the Formula 1 team amid criticism from one of his predecessors.
Since Renault reclaimed its Enstone F1 outfit in 2016 it has gone through several phases of revival and plans to attain success.
Its rebrand into Alpine came with a 100-race target instigated by former CEO Laurent Rossi, a task that Otmar Szafanuer was given responsibility for when he took on the Team Principal role in 2022.
Szafnauer’s tenure came to an end midway through 2023, not long after Rossi had lost his role as Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo became dissatisfied with the team’s performances.
Following his dismissal, Szafnauer critiqued the involvement of the Renault Group in the F1 project, saying “They shouldn’t meddle. Leave it! It’s so much different from a car company, you should just leave it to the experts.”
Bruno Famin succeeded Szafnauer but things only got worse for Alpine at the start of 2024 with one of the worst packages on the grid.
As the year progressed, the technical team was overhauled with David Sanchez brought in to lead those efforts and de Meo appointed Flavio Briatore as Executive Advisor.
Then, come August, Famin was out as Team Principal and Oakes came in.
Unlike Szafnauer, however, Oakes has a good relationship with Renault management and feels there’s a difference in the way the Alpine project is now managed.
“What I would say is that it’s not always one size fits all,” Oakes told motorsport.com
”I think it’s fair to say that elements of it are true – and [Szafnauer’s] a good mate, he’s been here before – but I think people should also remember who pays the bills and who supports the team.
“And from my point of view, we’re very lucky to have that support.
“It’s easy to always point the finger at somebody who’s ‘meddling’, but sometimes you have to ask yourself, well, why do they have to get involved? Is it because we’re not handling the stuff? Is it because we really have taken our eye off the ball?
“You can get frustrated at first, but then you step back and you say, ‘Actually, we probably should have done that better, but we didn’t want to hear that.’
“I don’t think there’s any need to hide things. I don’t think there’s any need to keep them at arm’s length.
“I think at the end of the day we have to work together. We have to build that trust.
“F1 is a complex business, as is the automotive world, and you can’t get it right all the time. I think obviously what’s happened before – everyone has their views, their opinions.”
“From my side, maybe things are a bit different now. Maybe Luca has more direct contact with me and Flavio.
Maybe the team has had to hit a bit of rock bottom to reset. I don’t know. At the end of the day, none of that is stopping you from making a good race car.”
Oakes isn’t feeling pressure at Alpine
Oakes, the youngest team boss on the F1 grid at 37, oversaw a late-season turnaround at Alpine last year.
That saw not only the extraordinary double podium in a wet Sao Paulo GP at Interlagos, but an Alpine team consistently fighting for top-10 race results to clinch sixth in the Constructors’ standings.
Ahead of his first full season in charge amid expectations to continue Alpine’s upward trajectory, Oakes isn’t feeling the pressure.
“Everybody says to me, do you feel it like a weight on your shoulders or a pressure? And I really see it differently,” he said.
“There’s no master plan. There’s no stuff that’s been said before, ‘100 races’ and all that. We just have to get better. We have to be a well-run team.”
“And I think we just have to focus on ourselves. And even with all the noise about the power unit and all the talk about selling and all that sort of rubbish, I think people have already seen that we’re just not really going to be bothered by that anymore.
“We’re just going to keep our heads down,” he concluded.
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