Oliver Oakes resigned as team principal of the Alpine Formula 1 team after his brother was arrested in a police raid for “transferring criminal property.”
An exclusive by The Telegraph has revealed that Oakes resigned after the Miami Grand Prix after discovering his younger brother William was arrested last Thursday at the Silverstone Park area.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: “William Oakes, 31, of Rugby was charged with transferring criminal property on Friday, May 2 after he was stopped in the Silverstone Park area in Northamptonshire on Thursday, May 1, 2025 in possession of a large amount of cash. He appeared before Northampton Magistrates’ Court on Saturday, May 3, and remanded in custody.”
Mr Oakes is listed as one of the directors of the racing team Hitech Grand Prix, which was relaunched by his older brother in 2015, and competes in many junior and feeder categories.
The arrest took place as Oakes was in Miami for the race, and immediately afterwards, flew to Dubai, and subsequently handed in his resignation.
This left Alpine Executive Advisor Flavio Briatore in charge of the team on a temporary basis, amid initial speculation the pair had clashed, leading to Oakes’ departure.
However Briatore affirmed this was not the case, and stated the resignation was “of a personal nature.”
Oakes’ Hitech connections with ‘friend’ Mazepin resurfaces
The revelation of William Oakes’ arrest has led to a resurfacing of information regarding the ownership of the Hitech Grand Prix team.
Through the team, which has helped bring through drivers such as Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar, the Oakes family has been connected to the family of Dimitry Mazepin.
Mazepin previously owned 75 percent of the team, and with that, his son Nikita – who drove for Haas in 2021 – was handed a seat the year previously.
Uralkali, the Russian fertiliser company of which Mazepin was CEO and is still a shareholder, sponsored the team at the time.
Bergton Management Ltd, Mazepin’s Cyprus-based investment firm, ceded its 75 percent to Oakes through Hitech Global Holdings just days after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mazepin himself was one of a selection of Russian businessmen invited to the Kremlin to meeting President Vladimir Putin in the hours following the start of the invasion.
Oakes asserted at the time that the takeover was “always part of the strategic plan for Bergton Management to exit Hitech in early 2022 and myself to own Hitech fully.”
The two men’s paths crossed earlier this year, when it was revealed that Mazepin had visited the F1 paddock in Bahrain during pre-season testing.
Mazepin was thought not to have been invited by any of the teams, but Oakes was quoted at the time as saying: “I’ve said hello to him. I haven’t met him.
“He’s a friend of mine [and] I used to be together with him in Hitech.
He was here catching up with another friend of his. It’s nice to see him.”
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