Oakes excited on Alpine's future after double-podium: "Keep the confidence"
F1 News
New Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes has commented on the potential of the team after their magnificent double-podium at the Brazilian Grand Prix. It has been an extremely difficult 2024 for the French team, but a second and third for Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly at Interlagos flipped their season in an instant, giving them huge momentum for the final three races of the season, as well as the potential to improve vastly for 2025.
Since Oakes, the former team principal and director of the junior formula team Hitech GP, there has been a change in fortune at Alpine. Qualifying and Grand Prix performances have improved under the leadership of the Brit, and in Sao Paulo, a good strategy call and some great pace in the wet conditions meant both Ocon and Gasly were able to hold onto their podium positions throughout the second half of the Grand Prix.
As a result, 33 points were added to Alpine's constructors' championship total, moving them to 49 points. Those points also led to the French team moving all the way from P9 to P6 in the standings, a potentially pivotal moment for Oakes and his team. Placement in the constructors' championship leads to bigger prize money come the end of the season, and a sixth-place finish compared to a ninth-place finish could fund an extra $30 million for Alpine, a massive aid for their future and competitiveness in F1.
Oakes knows points from Brazil "definitely help"
For Oakes, who is just getting used to the world of Formula 1 and how it operates, he hopes that the momentum can buoy Alpine for the rest of the season: "It's all new to me, understanding the highs and lows of F1. One thing that is surprising for me is that someone can be strong early on, and then the second half of the year, they fall away, but they still end up finishing up there. This [double-podium] does help us to keep the confidence going in the team."
Oakes continued on by saying how much this result was for the Alpine team around him after a tough 2024 so far: "Since I arrived after the shutdown [the closure of one of Alpine's manufacturing garages, ed.], I could see already, really in the build-up to Austin, we were tempering expectations, because it has been really hard to develop a car, especially in season. I think we've seen that with quite a few teams."
However, the performances in the last few weeks have impressed the British team boss, and he knows how important the momentum from the double-podium is in regards to the end of 2024, as well as 2025: "In Austin, I was full of praise for the fact we brought performance to the car. It was a bit trickier in the race, but then it was nice in Mexico to back that up in another way with points.
"Then I think here [Brazil], to see another improvement on that, it definitely does help. It's more actually just credit to everyone at Enstone and Viry because I think for them, it does mean a lot. You can see that," concluded Oakes.
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