Following the decision of the Contract Recognition Board, which concluded that Alpine has no rights to the future of the Australian driver for 2023, his signing by McLaren was confirmed.
However, at the moment Oscar Piastri remains the Alpine team’s reserve driver, continuing to work with one more member of the team this weekend at Zandvoort.
But as his future has already been confirmed to be linked to one of the French’s main rivals, the French team believes they have little to gain from keeping him on board and learning more about the car’s technical progress, both for 2022 as for 2023.
The simplest option at this point is to opt out, which could even make Piastri a free agent, allowing him to start working with his future team sooner than anticipated.
Referring to that situation, Alpine director Otmar Szafnauer said, “He’s still with us this weekend, doing his job in the simulator.”
“There are only a couple of days left, today and tomorrow. And then on Monday we will meet with him and decide what to do.”
“I repeat, we will decide on Monday, I don’t want to think about that right now. Because there are many more things to take into account,” added the French boss.
Otmar Szafnauer, Alpine F1 Team Principal, with Pat Fry
While Szafnauer was confident that Alpine had a contractual claim on Piastri , he acknowledged that his position changed slightly and he began to doubt when he heard McLaren ‘s testimony .
“At the time it all happened, I didn’t know the other side’s arguments,” he said. “After that. I mean, it took four days, and there were good arguments from both sides.”
“When it was over, I thought we had a 50% chance. But you know, in the end they didn’t make a decision in our favor. In short, I had accepted whatever it was,” Szafnauer explained.
A ‘strange’ simulation moment in the Piastri-Alpine case
One of the most controversial aspects of the Piastri case was Alpine ‘s decision to announce him as a factory driver for 2023, despite the Australian making it clear that he would not be racing for them.
When asked why the team went ahead with the announcement, Szafnauer said: “Well, at the time, we were having discussions with Oscar and we were looking at whether the contracts we had with him were valid. So that’s the reason for it. “.
Enstone’s structure director revealed last weekend that Piastri was informed of the announcement while he was working on the team’s simulator.
That moment has been described as “strange” and “annoying” by the Australian himself, as it put him in a somewhat awkward position in front of other members of the team.
Clarifying what happened, Szafnauer said: “What I can say and reiterate is what I’ve said before: ‘Oscar was in the simulator. When he finished his session, I went and notified him of the publication and congratulated him. He smiled and said ‘thank you’.”
“Were there a lot of other people in there? Not really, it was just me and the simulator technician. If you’ve ever seen a simulator, you’ll know it’s a very large room. There were only three of us in that room. It wasn’t something strange, because he smiled and thanked me,” he concluded.
