Early life

Oakes was born 11 January 1988, the son of Billy Oakes, the founder and owner of the former Formula Renault and British F3 team Eurotek Motorsport. He was educated at King's Ely.^[4] He began karting at age 4.

Racing career

Beginning his racing career in karting, Oakes was twice British Open Champion^[5] at the age of 12. His karting career ended after winning the Karting World Championship in 2005 at 17 years of age.^[2][6] His performances saw him attract the attention of the Red Bull Young Driver Programme, alongside Formula 1 graduates Sebastian Vettel, Brendon Hartley, Jaime Alguersuari and Sébastien Buemi.^{[citation needed]}

Moving to car racing in 2006, Oakes debuted in Formula BMW with Carlin Motorsport, where he took pole and the victory in his first race.^[6] Further claiming 3 podiums and a string of strong results, he finished the season in 6th overall in the Formula BMW UK Championship.^[7] He was nominated for the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award.^[8]

In 2007, Oakes joined Motopark for the 2007 Formula Renault Eurocup season in which he finished 12th.^[6]

Oakes joined Eurotek Motorsport to compete in the British Formula 3 Championship in 2008, taking pole position at the final round at Donington.^[6][9]

He moved to Carlin Motorsport for his 2009 campaign,^[10] but left after two rounds.^[11] Oakes took up test-driver roles for the rest of 2009 and raced in the GP3 Series in 2010 for Atech CRS, finishing 28th in the championship.^[12]

Post-racing career

Since 2010 Oakes has been involved in various team roles^[3] whilst maintaining an ongoing affiliation with Tony Kart.^[13]

Career summary

† Oakes was a guest driver and ineligible for points.
* Oakes was an invited driver in rounds 9–11 and thus was only eligible for points in rounds 2 and 8.

Complete GP3 Series results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)