Damon Hill shares which F1 team principal new Alpine boss Oliver Oakes reminds him of

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Alpine will replace Bruno Famin with former Hitech F2 boss Oliver Oakes after the summer break, in what is set to be another shakeup in the revolving managerial door for the French team.

Oakes will be the third person to have the team principal role at Alpine since the start of 2023, following Otmar Szafnauer and Bruno Famin after the latter stepped down following a period of being the interim.

It is far from an ideal situation for Alpine amid their poor on-track form and resignations of senior technical staff including Matt Harman and Dirk de Beer at the start of the year, the former of which has ended up at Williams as design director.

Now Oakes is at the helm, a former Red Bull protege who found success in Formula BMW before switching to British F3 and F1 feeder category GP3 didn’t quite have the same outcome.

A switch into management was a more successful move, with 1996 F1 World Champion Damon Hill explaining who Oakes reminds him of most in the F1 paddock when discussing him on the F1 Nation podcast.

Damon Hill on who Oliver Oakes reminds him of in the F1 paddock

Hill believes Oakes is one of the better candidates to lead Alpine during its current situation, having proven himself as a worthy team leader in the junior categories.

The former F1 driver also believes that he resembles another prominent figure in the paddock who has seen a lot of success.

“Someone like Ollie Oakes is the ideal candidate to run a Formula 1 team. He wants to win. He’s a winner. He’s a racer. He’s got his own race team. He understands what racing is. He’ll understand immediately.

“I know nothing about the guy other than the fact that if he’s run the Hietech team as successful as that and he understands the way it works, he’ll be like Christian [Horner]. He understands racing.

“I think that Flavio, he also understands this. He doesn’t understand cars. So he’s found someone who can do that.”

Oliver Oakes has managed impressive F1 talent

Oakes’ career has taken a nearly identical path to Christian Horner’s, in that his father also owned a junior formula team, had his racing career cut short, and then went into management before getting a top job as an F1 team principal.

Aside from beating talents such as Valtteri Bottas and Jules Bianchi during his karting years, Oakes has also gone on to manage flourishing F1 talent through his role at the Hitech junior formula team.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Alpine F1 team principal Oliver Oakes

George Russell drove for them in European Formula 3 while Nikita Mazepin also raced through Formula 2 before making his F1 debut with Haas in 2020.

The latest protege to find success at Hitech is Estonia’s Paul Aron, who is currently third in the F2 championship and could be in line for a promotion to Alpine given Oakes’ influence.