“They did such a bad job there,” Nico Rosberg critical of Alpine for losing Oscar Piastri
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Oscar Piastri
Oscar Piastri has been one of the hottest prospects for Formula 1 for quite a while. But he was under contract at Alpine, whose seats were filled. The original plan was seeming to loan him to Williams, but that did not work out. When Fernando Alonso announced his move to Aston Martin, the logical step was to put Piastri in the seat, and Alpine announced as much. Fans were excited – but he refused.
Alpine had apparently announced without his consent, which Otmar Szafnauer later stated was not the case. Szafnauer was also rather confident about the CRB hearing, feeling that he had everything in order. But that didn’t work out for the team either, and the CRB ruled that the McLaren contract, signed on July 4, was the only valid contract for Oscar Piastri.
Eyebrows were raised, and the date of the contract signing certainly raised a few questions. On July 13, Daniel Ricciardo had announced his commitment to McLaren, but the team seemed to already have decided his future, as they signed with Piastri more than a week before the post. It has certainly been controversial, and many people have been critical of Alpine for losing such a hot prospect. Nico Rosberg echoes these views.
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Nico Rosberg thinks it may be tough for Oscar Piastri up against Lando Norris
Alpine have been left stranded in the driver market right now, but at least they do have a few options. There’s Daniel Ricciardo, Mick Schumacher and potentially, Pierre Gasly, who would make the roster all-French. But losing Piastri must still sting, and even though Nico Rosberg has some sympathy for the team, as reported by PlanetF1, he feels they didn’t do a very good job of it.
Rosberg said: “Alpine really did such a bad job there. It’s really unbelievable for such a high-profile team to manage it so badly, investing so many millions into Piastri’s career, just to then not have him locked up in a contract and for him to be able to go away and take an offer from McLaren, so that’s really tough.”
But, as for Piastri, he has got a fantastic seat at McLaren now, where originally he may have gone to Williams. Rosberg acknowledges the role of Mark Webber in this: “For Piastri’s management though and around Mark Webber, great job. Got him a fantastic race seat there [at] McLaren. That’s huge and amazing, but nevertheless, it will be tough for Oscar to do well there because Lando is world-class, he’s World Championship material.”
Rosberg was also not convinced that Piastri will straight away do better than Daniel Ricciardo. Regardless, Alpine have more pain to come, as they will also have to pay more than half a million euros in relation to the case, which is just salt in fresh wounds.
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)