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Flavio Briatore and Oliver Oakes have teamed up to save Alpine The odd couple now in charge at Alpine TM FORMULA ONE’S BUSINESS MAGAZINE October 2024 Vol 9 Issue 10 SINGLE COPY US $32 • UK£25 • € 30 ANNUALLY US$260 • UK£205 • € 240 WAS CLAIRE REALLY THAT BAD?MEMORABILIA ONLINE AUCTION PT OCTOBER PT OCTOBER NOVEMBER Broad Arrow is excited to present an outstanding Swiss-based collection of over 60 helmets, most of which having been used in Formula One by well-known drivers. Highlights range from Rubens Barrichello’s race winning 2002 Indianapolis helmet to helmets used by drivers such as Jean Alesi, Daniel Ricciardo, Jacques Villeneuve, Jos Verstappen and Michael Schumacher.BusinessF1 3 TM REGULAR FEATURES Credits 4 • Letters to the Editor 4 • People Index 6 • Paddock Patter 9 • News 10 - 23 • Premature Facts 24 • Notes & Observations 26 • Lewis Webster 29 • Letter From America 30 • Motor Matters 31 • Jottings 98 COVER STORY 68 INSIGHT Guilty, moi? 38 For the second time and in almost repeat circum- stances, a few months apart, Red Bull Racing’s team principal, Christan Horner has been cleared of sexually harassing his former PA, Fiona Hewitson. This should be the end of the story, but is it? Stirling & Lady Susie: A family at war 54 Turning disaster into opportunity At the end of November 2008, the Honda Formu- la One team was in high spirits getting its 2009 car ready for the new season. Windtunnel testing was producing some exceptional numbers and it was clear the team had made an aerodynamics breakthrough. Then Ross Brawn and Nick Fry went off for a meeting with their bosses at Honda and got the shock of their lives. But they found that under every cloud there lies a silver lining. McLaren must make an SUV to have any future 46 McLaren Automotive spent seven years developing a new platform for a hybrid sports car to rival the Ferrari 296 GTB. But it has proved to be the wrong decision, made by the ex-CEO Mike Flewitt. What McLaren needed back in 2017, was not another sports car, but an SUV. Does Flewitt’s replacement, current chief executive, Michael Leiters understand that? Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. If he doesn’t then McLaren Automotive is doomed. 90 BOOK EXTRACT 32 Carlos Sainz has made the mistake of his life and signed for the Williams team, bringing echoes of 1997, when reigning world champion Damon Hill signed for the no-hope Arrows team and paid the price. Like Sainz at Ferrari, Hill was sacked by Williams from a top drive. Back then, Hill was sweet talked by Tom Walkinshaw. This time Sainz has been sweet talked by James Vowles. Just as Hill regretted it, so will Sainz. There can be no happy outcome, especially when Sainz had a viable and lucrative option to got to Audi and turned it down. FEATURE ... in conversation Flavio Briatore and Oliver Oakes have teamed up to save Alpine Tom Hartley jnr interviews Zak Brown, the McLaren Racing chief executive, live at his British showroom. Zak Brown had never visited Hartley before, although he had threatened on many occasions to turn up, but had never made the trip up from Woking. Tom chats to Zak about his passion for cars and where it all started, what his favourite cars are in his collection and what he doesn’t like so much. They also discuss and compare their own collections of road and race cars and the McLaren F1 team’s recent return to form. Bruno Famin was only 12 months a Formula One team principal, but in those few months he did incredible damage to a team that regularly overperformed before he arrived. The damage he did was immense and so many key people have left the team. Can Oliver Oakes buy the team and turn it round or is he just yet another boss destined to fail in an age of revolving door team principals. The next 12 months will tell. It must be difficult for Claire Williams sitting at home with $20 million in her bank account, not a worry in the world, but deeply frustrated for having failed in her dream job of running a Formula One team and effectively being blamed for destroying the family legacy. That is the story that will be told, but is it the real story? Was the job just too difficult and were the seeds of destruction actually sown by her father, Sir Frank Williams many years before? That is the story that probably should be told. 78 62 Zak Brown The odd couple Was Claire Williams really that bad? Sir Stirling and Lady Susie Moss are both dead but before they passed it became apparent that they did not particularly care for their own son, Elliott Moss. The feud was triggered when Elliott sold off a family heirloom, a valuable watch passed from fa- ther to son and never meant to be sold. The mystery of the whereabouts of the last will and testament of Lady Susie has just added to the speculation. 4 BusinessF1 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Tom Rubython CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Thomas Gibson, Oliver Edwards, Jo Maxwell, Lewis Webster CHIEF CREATIVE DESIGNER & PHOTOGRAPHER Alexander L. Sargent PHOTOGRAPHERS Darren Price, Jeff Custard WEB EDITOR Brad Dias CHIEF STATISTICIAN David Hayhoe VICE PRESIDENT - LOGISTICS David Peett EDITORS AT LARGE George Roberts, Andrew Frankl, Stefan Johansson GLOBAL AMBASSADOR Maprang Suwanbubpa FINANCE MANAGER Alex Rogers SUBSCRIPTIONS CO-ORDINATORS Daisy Macedward, Roger Smith BusinessF1 Magazine is published by BusinessF1 Magazine Ltd, Billing Wharf, The Causeway, Cogenhoe, Northampton NN7 1NH, United Kingdom Tel: 00 44 (0) 1604 698881/2 Email: editor@businessf1magazine.com Website: www.businessf1magazine.com October 2024 Volume 9 (Issue 10) BusinessF1 is published on the last Friday of every month. Title is copyright of BusinessF1 Magazine Ltd. F1 element is a recognised trademark of Formula One Licensing BV. Printed in Europe NEXT PUBLICATION DATE: The November 2024 issue of BusinessF1 Magazine is published on 4th October 2024. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Available for 12 months (12 issues) at a cost of US$280, UK£220 and €260 delivered anywhere in the world at no extra charge. Subscriptions can be ordered at www.businessf1magazine.com EDITORIAL COPYRIGHT: The contents of this magazine, both words and statistics, are strictly copyright and the intellectual property of BusinessF1 Magazine Ltd. Copying or reproduction may only be carried out with the written permission of the Publishers, which will normally not be withheld on payment of an agreed fee. ARTICLE REPRINTS: Many articles published in BusinessF1 Magazine are available as reprints by prior arrangement with the Publishers. Nor- mal minimum run for reprints is 100 but smaller quantities can be accommodated. Please contact David Peett - Vice President of Logistics. Normal service will be resumed Dear Tom, I was very sorry to hear of your medical ‘episode’ but delighted to hear that you are on the road to recovery and that you will be back in the driving seat full time on 1st September. I enjoyed the article in the July edition about Ferrari Classiche (Vol 9 No 7). You refer to the 36 Ferrari 250 GTOs that were made in period, although it is widely accepted that a few more than that number that actually exist today, so if nothing else the Classiche operation will flush out those fakes once and for all. In the same vein, Ken Davies (mentions several fraudsters in his letter to you, notably David Thieme and Sid Miller of Southern Organs fame, both of whom I wrote chapters on in my book ‘Driven to Crime’ which you kindly serialised in the magazine last year and might be of interest to some of your many newer subscribers. He also refers to the excellent book ‘Racing with Rich Energy’ which I too cannot recommend more highly, although there is no chapter in my own book about that particular issue as, rightly or wrongly, no criminality has been recorded. Yours, Crispian Besley Gayton Manor Gayton Northamptonshire NN7 3HE United Kingdom The Editor replies: An interesting point Crispian makes about the number of fake historic road cars that are around Some are very good. An excellent fake of a GTO can be knocked up for a million dollars or so, for someone with the right skills. Of course, that is only half the task. But the other half (papers and provenance) can also be faked and hey presto $1.5 million can be turned into $30 million. If a certain gentleman was still around (with the initials T.W.) you can bet he would be doing it. Talking of that gentleman, I’m still bothering Crispian about the absence of Tom Walkinshaw from his book and the sequel which is rumoured to be on the way. Although Mr Walkinshaw was never prosecuted, he was by far the biggest crook ever to operate in motor sport. Every other phone call seems to bring even more examples of his crookery. For instance, in a fuel restricted series, TWR competed in, Walkinshaw filled the hollow roll hoop up with fuel connected to the petrol tank. And people tell me he was just as crooked when he was involved in the sport of rugby union. The rancher who loves F1 Dear Tom, It is gorgeous here in Sedona Red Rock Country. I spent many years as a Colorado rancher but even then always tried to follow the Bernie show somehow. Being a grandfather of three forces me to live in California near to the kids but the open country out here always draws us I’d like to suggest a mail solution if it cannot be solved to get me the issues as they come out and are mailed: bundle them up every three months or so and send by courier. Not ideal but neither is the situation right now. I believe a UPS package arrived today. It figures I missed it by 24 hours but then my wife would have started in on me about storage in the RV. Yours, Bjorn Kielman 3617 Bayview Drive Manhattan Beach California 90266 United States of America The editor replies: Mr Kielman was a late convert to BusinessF1 and decided he had to have all the issues published since 2021. We always oblige and duly packed them off to him. But Mrs Kielman refused point blank to let him take them on vacation citing room in their motorhome. Equally her stubborn husband insisted they came, with his intention to read one a day. Crafty Mrs K bribed the UPS man to make the delivery a day later, by which time they had left for Sedona. Example of your failures Dear Tom, One small example of your failures. In your article BusinessF1 (May 2023 Vol 8 No 5) you state that I buried my rivals in their own concrete. However later you state that I hired thugs to kidnap the lorry drivers and held them captive until the concrete in their mixer had solidified making me the concrete king of London. I never had a concrete business in London. Ready mixed concrete was invented in Australia and expanded to London. I became involved in concrete commercially in 1959 in Oldham Lancashire and I developed a chain of ready mixed concrete plants in every city and town from Manchester to Glasgow. I sold out on 31st August 1963 and made my first million. Yours, Ken Bates 5 Avenue Princesse Grace 98000 Monaco Monaco The editor replies: Apologies to Ken, for mislabelling him - he was actually the concrete king of the North and a lot of money he made out of it as well. A million in the sixties was worth a hundred times today, not just for inflation but what it would buy. I interviewed a few people in the ready mixed concrete business and the building trade during my time as editor of BusinessAge. I think it was Sir Nigel Broackes who told that Ken was the concrete king. Because Broackes’s Trafalgar House company was based in London, I assumed he meant London and added the sinecure myself. Of course, I had no idea who Ken was then. That is until in 1994, the late Brian Mears walked into our offices in Baker Street, London with a folder under his arm that had ‘K. Bates’ scrawled on the cover and said you better read this. It was a complete run down on Ken and his activities. Much later I got to know John Darnell who spent many years consolidating the concrete business and he had a lot of things to say about Ken, none of them complimentary. Much later than that I got to know the late Matthew Harding, who often felt the lash of Ken’s whip on his back.A Abdulmalek, Aysha47 Abiteboul, Cyril76 Albon, Alex23, 29 Al-Dawood, Abdullah14, 15 Alguersuari, Jaime75 Aljishi, Samer47 Alonso, Fernando23, 31, 87, 89 Al Khalifa, Hamad bin Isa22, 47 Al Khalifa, Salman bin Hamad22 Alunni Bravi, Alessandro29, 34 Ambani, Nita13 Andretti, Mario80, 84 Antonelli, Kimi23, 29 B Barrichello, Rubens95 Bearman, Oliver23 Beavis, Glenn35 Ben Sulayem, Mohamed15 Binotto, Mattia29 Blake-Turner, Peter42, 43, 44 Bottas, Valtteri23, 52 Bratches, Sean13 Brawn, Ross22, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96 Breen, Michael36 Briatore, Flavio20, 31, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73 Brise, Tony23, 97 Broadley, Eric24 Brown, Zak29, 47, 78-82, 85 Brundle, Martin74 Buemi, Sébastien75 Butler, David97 Button, Jenson95, 97 C Campbell, Donald97 Capito, Jost35, 52 Cardinale, Gerry19 Chapman, Colin26 Cheever, Eddie84, 86 Clark, Jim97 Colapinto, Franco21 Collins, Peter29, 81 Coogan, Steve58 Corbyn, Jeremy26 Courage, Piers55 Cowell, Andy26 Crijns, Steve51 D David, Larry31 Davie, Tim29 Demaison, FX35 De Meo, Luca20, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76 Dennison, James53 Dennis, Ron47, 50, 55, 74, 85, 87, 89, 26 Domenicali, Stefano14, 20, 21, 31 Domingo, Placido31 Doohan, Jack23 Dowe, Tony26 Duff, Mike52 E Eager, Matt19 Ecclestone, Bernie31, 43, 85, 92, 94, 98 Eden, Richard61 Einhorn, David17 Elkann, John35 Ellis, Mark24 Ezpeleta, Ana11 Ezpeleta, Carlos11 Ezpeleta, Carmelo11 F Famin, Bruno13, 20, 68, 69, 70, 72, 74, 76 Ferrari, Enzo55, 74, 86, 26 Fiona Hewitson42 Fittipaldi, Emerson32, 34, 35, 37, 80, 85 Fittipaldi, Wilson37 Fleet, Joanna40 Flewitt, Mike46, 47, 51, 52 Forghieri, Mauro87 Forrest, Andrew55 Francis, Alf61 Frankl, Andrew31 Frentzen, Heinz-Harald36 Frith, Richard26 Fry, Nick90, 92, 94, 95 Fry, Pat26, 35 Fukui, Takeo91, 93, 94, 96 G Gakwaya, Christian15 Gasly, Pierre23 Gatare, Francis15 Gendebien, Olivier81 Ghiotto, Luca76 Goodell, Roger9 Goodman, Tania12 Green, Lady Tina61 Griffiths, Charlotte61 Griffiths, Will47 Grutman, David17 Guanyu, Zhou23 H Haas, Carl24 Hakkinen, Mika80, 84, 85 Halliwell, Geri41, 43, 44 Hamilton, Duncan81 Hamilton, Lewis23, 35, 84, 89 Haren, Erick Van41 Harman, Matt26 Harris, Kamala29 Harris, Marc53 Harrison, George88 Hartley, Brendon75 Hartley, Tom79, 80, 81, 82, 85 Hayle, David76 Head, Patrick36, 55 Hess, Sylvia40 Hewitson, Fiona12, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45 Hill, Damon32, 34-36, 57, 80 Hill, Graham80, 83 Hill, Steve16 Hilton, Christopher91 Hoffmann, Oliver34 Hogan, John31 Honda, Soichiro91 Horner, Christian12, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 44, 74 Horner, Geri45 Hulkenberg, Nico23 Hunt, Ben35 Hunt, James32 Huntsman, Jon19 I Ilott, Callum75 J Jagger, Sir Mick 24 Jones, Alan55, 78, 84 Jordan, Eddie30, 36 Jordan, Michael B.19 Joshua, Anthony19 K Kagame, Paul15 Kaltenborn, Monisha55 Kelce, Travis19 Kelly, John44 Kelly, Jonathan41 Kerr, Nigel92 Kim, Vladimir Sergeyevich, 9, 20, 68, 72, 18 Kirchmayr, Alexander42 Knaus, Marlene98 Krief, Philippe20 L Lafferty, Doug53 Landau, Martin31 Latifi, Nicholas35 Lauda, Niki, 24, 37, 78, 83, 87, 89, 98 Lawson, Liam23 Lebrun, Marcel59 Leclerc, Charles23, 35 Leiters, Michael46, 47, 52 Lennon, John88 Livanos, Peter60 Lowe, Paddy52, 53 M Maffei, Greg9, 10, 11, 14 Magnussen, Kevin23 Mahomes, Patrick19 Malone, John10, 11 Mansell, Nigel36, 24, 78, 80 Marko, Dr Helmut40, 41, 42, 45, 75 Marsden, John92 Massa, Felipe52 Mateschitz, Dietrich9, 24, 41 Mateschitz, Mark42 Matthews, James35, 52, 53 Mazepin, Dmitry9, 18, 20, 24, 53, 68, 72, 75, 76 Mazepin, Nikita, 24, 72, 74, 76 McElhenney, Rob19 McGrory, Caroline13, 92, 96 McIlroy, Rory19 McLaren, Bruce48, 50 Meadows, Ron92 Milken, Michael10 Miller, Graham92 Mintzlaff, Oliver42, 45 Mosley, Max36, 94, 98 Moss, Alfred58, 61 Moss-Carlsson, Pat57, 59 Moss, Elliot54-61 Moss, Sir Stirling55-61, 86, 87 Moss, Lady Susie55-61 Müller-Ötvös, Torsten47 Murnane, Tim47 Murray, Gordon50 N Needell, Tiff98 Neve, Patrick55 Newey, Adrian9, 24, 26, 24 Nobelius, Dennis47 Norris, Adam75 Norris, Lando23, 26, 75 Nygaard, Peter23 O Oakes, Billy75 Oakes, Oliver18, 19, 20, 29, 24, 68-76 Ocon, Esteban23 O’Driscoll, Mike53 Ojjeh, Sultan47 Oñoro, Carlos29, 35 Ono, Yoko88 Oshima, Hiroshi90, 91, 92, 94 P Patrese, Ricardo36 Penske, Roger85 Perez, Sergio23, 29 Piastri, Oscar13, 23 Piccinini, Marco86 Piquet, Nelson78 Pirie, Valerie57 Poulter, Ian86 Prazer, Emily16 Prodromou, Peter24 Prost, Alain24, 36 Pryce, Tom23, 97 R Ramsay, Gordon17 Ratcliffe, Peter57, 61 Rawding, Susie59 Regazzoni, Clay55 Reininghaus, Mariella von98 Reynolds, Ryan20 Rhoten, Doug19 Ricciardo, Daniel23, 24 Rindt, Jochen37, 55 Rohonyi, Tamas31 Rolt, Tony81 Rosberg, Keke30, 37 Rossi, Laurent20, 76 Ross, Stephen13 Roussel, Pierre-Yves47 Roux, Albert60 Rushen, Dennis76 Russell, George23, 29, 34 Rutherford, Johnny85 S Saie, Hisham Al47 Sainz, Carlos21, 23, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35 Sainz Snr, Carlos34 Salvadori, Roy86 Salzer, Stefan40 Sanchez, David70 Sargeant, Logan21, 23, 35 Sato, Takuma96 Savage, Matthew35, 52, 53 Saward, Joe23, 35, 91, 95 Scheiner, Alec19, 20 Schumacher, Michael, 36, 24 Schumacher, Ralf36 Seidl, Andreas34 Senna, Ayrton24, 36, 50, 80, 84, 97 Senna, Bruno97 Shepherd, Amanda60 Sheriff, Antony47, 50 Smith, Mark76 Smith, Michaell20 Srivaddhanaprabha, Vichai13 Stanley, Louis98 Starmer, Keir26 Stella, Andrea26 Stewart, SirJackie34, 37, 55 56, 57 Stroll, Lance23 Stroll, Lawrence53 Sühlmann, Tobias51 Suzuki, Aguri92 Syed, Omar47 Szafnauer, Otmar13, 20, 69, 70, 74 T Taffin, Remy69 Tilke, Herman14, 15 Tremayne, David22, 97 Trump, Donald26 Tsunoda, Yuki23 Tyrrell, Bob54 Tyrrell, Ken54 U Unser Jr, Al85 V Vasseur, Frédéric76 Vermeulen, Raymond43, 45 Verstappen, Jos40, 43 Verstappen, Max23, 29, 24, 41, 43 Vettel, Sebastian75 Vigna, Benedetto35 Villeneuve, Jacques34, 55 Vowles, James21, 26, 29, 32, 35, 52 W Wache, Pierre24 Wachter, Paul19 Wagner, Robert82 Walkinshaw, Tom, 26, 32, 36 Walsh, Paul22, 47, 49 Waltman, Michael17 Watzlawick, Franz42 Wetzinger, Birgit98 Wheatley, Jonathan29 Wheatley, Marshall24 Wheeler, Peter51 Whiting, Charlie95 Whitmarsh, Martin76 Williams, Claire51-55 Williams, Frank36, 51, 55, 74 Williams, Jamie54 Williams, Jonathan54 Williamson, Roger23, 97 Willis, Geoff95 Wilm, Renee16, 17 Wilson, Mary88 Wolff, Toto29, 53 Wolf, Walter55 Wurz, Alex14, 15 Y Yoovidhya, Chalerm29, 42, 43, 44, 45 Z Zander, Jörg92 Zavos, Andrea61 6 BusinessF1 PeopleIndexTRACKSIDE SUPERYACHT F1 EXPERIENCE 82nd MONACO GRAND PRIX MAY 23-25, 2025 MyYachtGroup.comInfo@MyYachtGroup.com SECURE YOUR PLACE ABOARD! BOOK NOW TO LOCK IN 2024 PRICING! ® ® CONNECTING THE WORLD'S MOST INTERESTING PEOPLE THEOriginal Paintings • Posters • Autographs • Automobilia T: (+44) 1327 858 167 E: info@speedsport.co.uk www.speedsport-gallery.com speedsport gallery DEXTER BROWN: Collaged painting of Manfred von Brauchitsh depicted in 1938 during a pitstop in a Mercedes Benz W154. Gouache on board 26 cm x 19 cm The speedsport gallery has an exclusive range of very high quality original paintings, posters and autographed items for sale. Owned and run with passion by former racer Mike O’Brien, the speedsport gallery is conveniently located near the main entrance of Silverstone Circuit.Tom Rubython Editor-in-Chief Editor’s Letter 9 BusinessF1 I f petrolheads want a serious car to drive on a race track then the only car to buy is the McLaren Solus GT. It has a Formula One carbon fibre chassis and an old style uprated V10 engine that will deliver a highly immersive, race-car-like driving experience, in a practical manner for wealthy amateur drivers and at a price half of that of buying an RB17. McLaren is sensibly building only 25 cars with price tag of around $3.5 million. Unlike the RB17, the order book is rock solid and all were pre-sold to McLaren’s existing customers even before the car was announced. I suspect McLaren may be tempted to produce another 25 should the occasion demand it. It’s curtains for the RB17 if it does. N o magazine has lavished as much praise on Adrian Newey as BusinessF1 has. We respect him, his talents, his achievements and most of all his longevity. His status as the greatest designer of race cars will never be surpassed as long as motor racing exists. But and there is a big but. As far as designing other types of cars go, he really hasn’t got it. The Aston Martin Valkyrie he designed is a flawed car. It is a great car, but a flawed car, as even Adrian has admitted himself. Now his second attempt at a non- race car is equally flawed. In the Red Bull RB17 he has attempted to cure the Valkyrie’s flaws but seemed not to focus on that, because of an earlier cop-out, the RB17 is not a car that will ever be driven on the road. It is destined to be track only and for that it is terribly flawed. Truthfully the RB17 is overdesigned, overpriced and overhyped. The first bad decision was to make it a track car. A road car was the late Dietrich Mateschitz’s vision when he gave the go ahead for the project. But as the months since Mateschitz’s death roll on, all sorts of Red Bull visions are being watered down and this is just one of them. D ietrich Mateschitz would never have approved the latest television adverts being run by Red Bull for its energy drink. Mind you, he would never have approved of any of the shenanigans that have gone on at Red Bull Racing since his death. In fact, the shenanigans (and that is the best word to describe them) would never have happened if he was still alive. The Red Bull corporate culture Mateschitz fostered is slowly dying and it is becoming just another company, as each month goes by. Mateschitz’s genius was not properly recognised when he was alive. The general perception was that he stumbled on a brilliant idea and developed it into a brilliant product and it was the product, not the man who made it a success. It is now blindingly obvious that the perception was not true. Mateschitz created a brand new consumer marketplace and then made and marketed a brilliant product to fill it. M ost people weren’t aware that the rules of the National Football League (NFL) forbade the involvement of private equity firms in the sport. This only came to light when Roger Goodell, the NFL Commissioner, announced that he is considering changing the rules allowing private equity firms to invest in the sport and own up to 10 per cent of an NFL team franchise. Commissioner Goodell made his announcement during the Sun Valley annual movers and shakers convention in Idaho last month. The NFL has previously outlawed private equity minority ownership, or any sort of ownership, but rapidly rising team valuations have caused Goodell to rethink and change the rules. Apparently, the American league’s NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS all allow private equity team ownership of up to the 30 percent level. Goodell said; “As sports evolve, we want to make sure our policies reflect that.” Formula One currently has no rules on private equity ownership – should it have? I t seems obvious that Oliver Oakes’s ascension at Alpine Racing is a prelude to him buying control of Alpine from Renault. Oakes certainly has the resources to do so. Since Dmitry Mazepin was forced to vacate the Formula One scene, he has been backed by Vladimir Kim, the Korean billionaire, said by Bloomberg to be worth $5.92 billion. Kim easily has the resources to complete the purchase of the 70 percent stake Renault owns in Alpine Racing. But here’s the rub. The Federation Internationale de L’Automobile (foolishly in my view) rejected Oakes’s entry to Formula One a year ago because it did not deem Vladimir Kim to be a fit and proper person to own a Formula One team. So how is the FIA going to react when Kim ends up controlling Alpine Racing - will he suddenly become a fit and proper person? If the FIA is a serious and credible organisation it will have to move to block Mr Kim’s purchase of the team. But of course, it can’t do that. The FIA has not covered itself in any glory at all in the way it handled the new team entry process in 2023. The one team it did approve, Andretti Global, has now been rejected by Greg Maffei of Liberty media, principally because he doesn’t like Michael Andretti. Liberty Media, may own the commercial rights, but it has no right, under the sport’s statutes, to reject the Andretti entry to Formula One. The FIA urgently needs to assert its authority and sort out this mess, before people realise that the FIA is a paper tiger and somewhere down the road it will pay a very heavy price for that perception. Next >