Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes was warned by Toto Wolff that he had joined the “piranha club” after becoming the newest team boss in the paddock.

Oakes was appointed Alpine boss in July with the monumental task of turning the team around but he will also have to manage the politics that come with being an F1 team principal.

Oliver Oakes shares Toto Wolff warning in new F1 team principal role

Oakes, at the age of 36, is the second youngest team principal in F1 history and although he has extensive experience with Hitech GP, managing an F1 team is a different beast.

Already in his first few weeks, he has had to deal with a strike from Renault’s engine department as well as Alpine struggling to consistently finish in the points.

Behind the scenes, Oakes will also be getting a taste of the kind of political manoeuvring performed by team principals and he got one warning from Toto Wolff in particular.

“It’s funny, some of it is really similar [to his Hitech GP role] because you have the same characters in different roles as different people,” he said in Singapore. “So no matter what you race, some of it is the same. It’s just another person in another soap opera.

“And some of it’s very different. Toto made me laugh quite early on when he rang me and said ‘welcome to the piranha club’ and actually, you know, there’s a bit of that, which is quite fun.”

It was Ron Dennis who famously uttered the words “welcome to the piranha club”, doing so as he greeted Eddie Jordan after the Jordan team boss was outmanoeuvred by Flavio Briatore to lose Michael Schumacher to Benetton.

Aside from those challenges, Oakes said he has been enjoying other aspects away from the track like trying to ensure you have the best staff possible.

“On the other side, all those challenges are quite interesting, because it isn’t just making a car go faster. You need to get hold of good people. There’s gardening leaves. There’s negotiations there.

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“You’ve then got the recent McLaren topic, they’re doing a really good job, and everybody is lobbying against them.

“But I would say probably, at the moment, we’re not involved in any of that. We just need to make a better car.

“It is interesting and there’s nothing like F1, is there?”

But Oakes’ main focus will be trying to improve in 2025 after an awful 2024 season. The Briton conceded that the last three races “haven’t been at all very good.”

“Spa, we brought an update, was pretty, I’d say, decent. Zandvoort was decent,” he recalled. “And then I think Monza, Baku, here, we haven’t been at all very good.

“I think we need to have a good look why, to be honest.”

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