Oksana Kosachenko

Oksana Kosachenko is best known as a Formula One team official and as the former manager of Vitaly Petrov, but she began her motorsport life as a driver.

She had a short competition career in the mid-2000s while she was working as a motorsport broadcaster. Her route into sports journalism was via gymnastics, which she had to give up as a young adult for medical reasons. As she was born in 1966, this would have been in the 1980s. Some sources claim that she was a coach and choreographer to rhythmic gymnasts, but the stories are all rather vague. Her involvement in motorsport started in broadcasting but very soon encompassed driver management and championship co-ordination.

She took part in the Russian VW Polo Cup in 2002 and 2003, with a best finish of tenth at St Petersburg in 2002. Her car was supplied by the “Sport Garage” team and the TV show for which she worked. Initially, she turned down the offer of a race seat but she was persuaded to take part and provide in-car commentary. Her season in 2003 was affected by an accident at St Petersburg; she was not able to start the next race and was off the pace for the much of the rest of the season. 

In 2004, she drove a Sport Garage Polo in some rounds of the Russian Touring Car Light Championship, but she was never among the front-runners. Her best result by a long way was a thirteenth place at the Nevaring near St Petersburg. 

In 2005, she made two appearances in the Russian Touring Car Championship, at Moscow. She finished 17th in both of her races, driving a Honda Civic. This was combined with a part-season in Touring Light, driving the same VW Polo as previously. 

Her competition career ends here but she continued as a commentator, working with European Formula 3 and the DTM for Russian television. At about the same time, her “Manuscript” promotional agency managed the Russian Touring Car Championship.

In tandem with her commentary and racing activities, she worked as a driver’s agent. She was the manager of Russian Formula One driver Vitaly Petrov from 2001, when Petrov was only 16. Under Oksana’s tutelage, he progressed from winning the Lada Cup in Russia, through the junior formulae, regional Formula 3000, GP2 and then Formula One in 2010 with Renault.

Their partnership concluded in 2013 when Oksana took on the role of commercial manager for the Caterham team. She lasted only one year with the team, which went into administration in 2014. 

Almost immediately she repositioned herself as an outspoken media pundit. Even while she was still at Caterham, she gave a superficially telling interview to a Russian paper about team spying and most drivers’ dislike of Monaco. 

More recently, she has made a series of inflammatory statements, including describing the struggling Williams team as “more like a Formula 2 team” and claiming that Aston Martin was unlikely to become a winning team.

She has distanced herself completely from her time as a driver and said on more than one occasion that women were not strong enough to be successful racing drivers.

(Image from fehrplay.com)