Piastri joined McLaren for 2023 in place of Daniel Ricciardo after spending the 2022 campaign on the sidelines with Alpine.
A junior with the French-owned squad, there was no race drive available after the Australian won the Formula 2 championship at the first attempt in 2021.
However, he was announced as Fernando Alonso’s replacement after the Spaniard stunned the F1 world by announcing his defection to Aston Martin in the days after the 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix.
Piastri rejected Alpine’s announcement, famously taking to social media to state his position.
The tussle for the Melburnian’s services ultimately ended up with the Contract Review Board (CRB) ruling in favour of McLaren in a judgement that heavily criticised Alpine’s management and legal department.
The saga made for a high-profile arrival into F1, more so given that, in addition to fighting for Piastri’s services, McLaren had to pay a significant severance package to Ricciardo – a show of faith that generated significant goodwill from Piastri.
Speaking in a podcast with The Race, Brown has now thanked Alpine for opening the door for him to swoop on the Australian.
“Lando [Norris], we brought up through the ranks; Oscar we identified as the next Lando,” Brown said.
“They [Alpine] kind of dropped the ball there. Thank you, Otmar!
“We were able to bring Oscar on board, and he’s done a fantastic job. We have two unbelievably competitive drivers.”
Szafnauer left Alpine midway through the 2023 season and has subsequently opened up on the Piastri ordeal.
Speaking on the High Performance Podcast, he suggested the situation had been mismanaged prior to his arrival, which he was then left to carry the can for.
“There was a contract after he finished his F2 career where Alpine had an option on Oscar Piastri as a Formula 1 driver for Alpine, and that contract was never executed,” Szafnauer revealed.
“In November, there was a two-week time window where it could have been done, and it wasn’t.
“Now my point is, come the CRB, where Alpine lost because the filings were incorrectly done, we put out a press release, and the press release has my image on it.
“So number one, nothing to do with me. I wasn’t even there. But number two, the communications department that didn’t report to me thought it was a good idea to deflect the incompetency of those that were Alpine at the time by putting my picture on the release.
“It just showed at the time that there were some people within the Alpine organisation that were untrustworthy and that were out to get me, so they weren’t working with me.”
Piastri currently leads the championship by 10 points from Norris, having won three of the opening five races of the 2025 season.
He inked a ‘multi-year’ contract extension with McLaren ahead of the Australian Grand Prix in March, which is expected to keep him at Woking until at least the end of 2027.
Believed to be in the region of $40 million annually, the deal was designed as a significant warning to rivals against attempting to poach the highly-rated 24-year-old.
Meanwhile, Alpine has undergone a significant management shakeup with former CEO Laurent Rossi having also long departed.
Oliver Oakes now manages the operation as team principal, and Flavio Briatore works in an advisory role after being appointed by Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo last May.
Pierre Gasly leads the team on track alongside Jack Doohan, who succeeded Piastri as the squad’s reserve driver.
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