Will Flavio Briatore be involved in F1 politics in Alpine role?

Alpine’s new team principal will face his first Formula 1 race in the job in the next few weeks when racing resumes at the Dutch Grand Prix.

The 36-year-old former racer founded Hitech Grand Prix in 2015, which has been competing on the F1 junior series ladder.

Following Bruno Famin’s decision to step down from the role as Alpine team principal, Oakes was appointed as his replacement and will begin properly after the summer break.

The day after the Oakes announcement, it was confirmed that Red Bull sporting director Jonathan Wheatley would step down from his role at the reigning world champion squad at the end of 2024 to become team principal at Audi.

Wheatley will work directly under Mattia Binotto, the ex-Ferrari F1 team boss who has been installed as chief operating officer and chief technical officer at Audi.

Where Binotto will likely take responsibility in the political side of F1, allowing Wheatley to focus on his job as team principal, Oakes faces this task on his own.

According to Sky Sports F1’s Ted Kravitz, it’s unthinkable to see a situation where Alpine would have Flavio Briatore - who now holds the role of Renault CEO Luca de Meo’s executive advisor - be involved in team principal meetings in the same way Binotto would be for Audi.

“He’s very much in that club of ambitious, young drivers-turned-team bosses,” Kravitz said of Oakes on Sky Sports F1’s most recent podcast.

“As a team boss he’ll know what makes drivers tick, because he was one.

“He knows how teams are run and in a sense I think he’ll be ok on the political side as well, because what Oakes doesn’t have is somebody directly above him who will be doing all of the political stuff.

“So, Wheatley is team principal, but he has chief executive officer Mattia Binotto directly above him in the Sauber/Audi structure who will be able to do all of the political stuff.

“Oakes is going to have to do all of the politics stuff himself, unless he wants Flavio to do it.

“Being in an F1 Commission meeting or being in the team principals’ [meeting]… Flavio’s not going to turn up to the team principals’ meeting. 
“He’s an executive advisor to Renault’s boss. That’s not a position for him to turn up at a team principals’ meeting.

“Now, if you’re at Sauber/Audi, ok the team principal is Jonathan Wheatley, but the boss of the operation who is taking a higher-level view is Mattia Binotto.

“Mattia Binotto is more use to being at Stefano Domenicali’s team principals’ coffee mornings.

“So, you’d imagine Binotto will get Wheatley to run the Formula 1 team but he’ll be involved at that higher Audi level in representing at that kind of representative level.

“But Oakes is going to have to do that politics thing and quite quickly, whereas we’ll have to wait and see whether Wheatley - who knows more about working in Formula 1, because he’s worked in Formula 1 for many more years than Oliver Oakes has… Wheatley will know more of that, but Wheatley doesn’t know as much about being a race team principal as Oakes does.”