Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin shook the Formula 1 world on the Monday after the Hungarian Grand Prix, when they announced that the Spanish driver will join the Silverstone team in the 2023 season.
Alonso will join Aston Martin on a multi -year deal as a replacement for Sebastian Vettel, who had announced his retirement at the end of the current season on Wednesday before the Hungaroring , the last before the top-flight summer break.
The change of seat for the two-time Asturian champion took Alpine, his current team, by surprise, since the team’s boss, Otmar Szafnauer , had expressed his wish that Alonso renew to continue with the Enstone organization next year.
However, Haas boss Gunther Steiner had no problem ensuring that Alonso’s talks with Lawrence Stroll ‘s team as soon as Vettel’s decision became known were no secret in the paddock.
“It was an open secret that Fernando was talking to Aston Martin when Vettel left, and I wasn’t that surprised,” Steiner explained to racingnews365.com .
However, there was something that caught the Haas manager by surprise, which was the Oscar Piastri situation, which he compared to the similar event between Chip Ganassi and Alex Palou.
The Australian was confirmed by Alpine as Alonso’s replacement the day after the announcement of the Spaniard’s departure, but it was the young Australian himself who denied that he was going to race with said team.
Pending official confirmations, Piastri has been linked with McLaren.
“Piastri was seen as an ‘Alpine driver’ in my opinion, they trained him, brought him to this level and helped him, so I thought for sure I would be driving for them in F1 after Fernando left. I think there’s something else behind it, but I don’t have details about it,” Steiner said.
Steiner also touched on his own drivers’ contracts , noting that Haas has yet to hold talks with Mick Schumacher about continuing them in 2023.
“I don’t really know what Mick has done, and we haven’t talked about next year with him,” Steiner confirmed. “He hasn’t talked to us and we haven’t talked to him, we want to see what happens.”
“This Aston Martin thing happened very quickly, and so no one had time to really think about it, but there were rumors that Mick could replace Vettel, but it went away pretty quickly. We didn’t look at what the others were doing,” he added. .
Steiner indicated that any decision regarding Schumacher must also be shared with Ferrari and hopes that there will be news once the races in Europe are over, the last one planned this year being the Italian Grand Prix , which will be held on September 11. .
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