‘I warned Piastri,’ Otmar Szafnauer clarifies Alpine’s decision to announce Oscar Piastri as Fernando Alonso’s replacement
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Otmar Szafnauer, Oscar Piastri
It hasn’t been an easy month for Alpine. Sebastian Vettel announcing his retirement triggered a domino effect. Soon, Aston Martin announced that Fernando Alonso will replace Vettel in the team. Then, when Alpine announced their reserve driver, Oscar Piastri, as Alonso’s replacement, there was more to come. Piastri was rumoured to be in talks with McLaren and said that he will not be driving for Alpine in 2023.
Now, Daniel Ricciardo – the man who he ostensibly would have replaced for 2023, has parted ways with McLaren. But there has been no announcement from the British team regarding his replacement, who everyone is assuming will be Piastri. But Piastri is in a bit of a muddle himself, with the clouds of a legal battle with Alpine looming large.
Alpine’s team principal Otmar Szafnauer even went as far as to say: “He’s a promising young driver who hasn’t driven in Formula 1 yet and my wish for Oscar was that he had a bit more integrity.” and that in accordance with the contract that he had signed with the team back in November of last year, and accused Piastri of trying to get off his end of the bargain.
Otmar Szafnauer is ‘very’ confident about CRB hearing
Alpine and Oscar Piastri’s fates will be decided on Monday when they will appear before the FIA’s Contract Recognition Board. As reported on the official Formula 1 website, Otmar Szafnauer is confident about the hearing, and believes that they have everything in order on their part: “Very [confident]. I have seen both sides of the argument and we are confident that Oscar signed with us back in November.”
He added that “There are certain things that need to be in the contract and I’m confident they’re in there.” Further, Szafnauer denied the insinuation that Alpine had a deadline to exercise their option and elaborated on some of the terms: “And the term of the contract, it is through 2024 with an option at the end of ’23. So I’ll just say those things, but there’s a lot more in there.”
The first thing Oscar Piastri said in his statement on social media was that Alpine announced him without his prior agreement. Szafnauer contested this and said he had informed Piastri before the announcement: “I told Oscar before the announcement was made, he happened to be in the simulator so I went and found him, he smiled and was thankful, so we made the release very quickly.”
Szafnauer also said that Piastri is continuing his regular work with Alpine despite the saga, as evidenced by him being on sim duties for the Belgian Grand Prix. If they lose Piastri, Szafnauer also said that they will work on his replacement after they have all of the information in front of them.
Also Read: Oscar Piastri on sim duties for Alpine despite the ongoing rift between the two parties
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)