Briatore on why he chose Oakes
After two months in the job, Briatore determined that a leadership change was required to speed things up. Famin – who held the role for a year, having added it to his duties as an Alpine Motorsports Vice President, was moved aside. Briatore had a very short list of potential candidates and opted to only interview two options, with Oakes – a former racing driver who moved into management and founded Hitech Grand Prix – coming out on top.
“I knew at one point I needed to change the team principal,” says Briatore. “I wanted to go much quicker for the team. I interviewed two people. Somebody was talking about Oli. We met three or four times for a long time to understand if it was a good possibility to work together.
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“In this situation, what you need is people with you who have the same ambition. He’s young. He’s one of the youngest principals ever in Formula 1. And the feeling as well. I talked with a lot of people, three or four potential team principals. I became convinced Oli was the right choice for the team, working with me and working with everybody together.”
He adds: ”Oli had enthusiasm; he’s young, he’s enthusiastic, he’s ambitious. He’s what we need in the team. To turn around this team, you need young people, you need people with character, patience for the job, the people who understand who are the good ones or the bad ones, the people [who] understand what is going on in the race, people who understand what’s going on in the factory. This is the principle. Oli, I believe, he has no experience at a big team like this one but the talent to be successful.”
