The saga surrounding Oscar Piastri’s Formula 1 debut looks set to be resolved this week after the FIA’s Contract Recognition Board met yesterday to discuss the matter.
In its simplest form, Alpine and McLaren both claim to have a valid contract with the Australian for 2023. Naturally, only one of them can.
The current situation is a result of an apparent lack of communication and trust between Alpine and the Piastri camp.
It was no secret that the French marque wanted to extend its deal with Fernando Alonso, a move which looked set to leave Piastri on the sidelines for another year.
To remedy that, a drive at Williams was offered as part of a loan deal. That could have been one year, possibly more, depending on what the outcome of negotiations with Alonso was.
Whatever the specifics, it was not a drive with Alpine and Piastri’s future was not in his own hands.
Facing that future, the young Australian and his management team began looking around.
And so they ended up on Zak Brown’s doorstep, quite literally, where it’s understood a deal to replace Daniel Ricciardo for 2023 was struck.
Through that process, which became public in the days following the Hungarian Grand Prix, one key question has remained unanswered; why did Alpine enter negotiations with Alonso and not simply promote Piastri?
Of any team in Formula 1, Alpine will know last year’s Formula 2 champion better than any other.
He has completed some 3500km of testing in a 2021-spec car, approximately 11 full grands prix, across several circuits offering it the greatest insight any team has had into a rookie driver in recent decades.
On the other side of the equation, Piastri has had the sort of introduction into F1 that rookies can only dream of.
Mick Schumacher, George Russell, and Charles Leclerc had far less opportunity behind the wheel of an F1 car before they appeared at the sport’s pinnacle.
So why wasn’t Piastri automatically promoted, and why did Alpine feel it was better to negotiate a new deal with Alonso instead?
There are two viable explanations.
The kinder is that Alpine preferred to continue with Alonso because of the marketing value the two-time world champion offers.
He’s a high-profile name, certainly more high-profile than Piastri, and is therefore an attractive proposition.
Last year, the boutique brand sold less than 3000 units, though did enjoy strong growth in its French homeland.
However, it’s a brand with a confused position within the automotive landscape; an offshoot of Renault producing retro-styled high-end products. It’s niche, to say the least.
In that market, is the presence of Alonso going to make that much of a difference when it comes to shifting metal off forecourts?
The other explanation is that Alpine has reservations about the young Aussie.
What they might be is unknown, but in a sport hell-bent on performance, its trepidation in immediately promoting him is telling.
Of course, following Alonso’s announcement, its hand was forced; if it didn’t promote Piastri it the whole Academy programme gets thrown into question.
And besides, at that point, Piastri is the most credentialled driver available, unless they can lure Sebastian Vettel out of retirement.
Whatever the case, it is clear the Melburnian was not the team’s first choice and farming him out was a preferred option.
And that made strong sense too.
Alpine could recover some of the cost of investment while having a risk-free means of monitoring his progress.
No matter the pedigree, Formula 1 is a different beast and not all drivers make the cut.
Jan Magnussen was tipped to be the next big thing when he arrived in F1, but in less than two seasons his career was over with a total of one world championship point to show for it.
Others too have arrived with promise and floundered; Vitantonio Liuzzi and Jean-Eric Vergne were both tipped for brighter F1 careers than they ended up enjoying, and so too Stoffel Vandoorne.
Of course, that’s not all drivers, and those who’ve succeeded of late have typically been placed elsewhere first; think Leclerc and Russell.
Placing Piastri with another team, therefore, made sense from a risk-management perspective for Alpine, while being paid for the privilege.
At the end of that, if he’s proved the bright talent his junior career has suggested he is, it’s easy to bring him back into the factory fold.
So why, given all of the above, has Alpine chosen to fight his departure through the Contract Recognition Board?
The answer to that, it seems, is the simplest of the lot; money.
By simply allowing Piastri to leave for McLaren it is guaranteed to have lost every dollar of its investment in him.
Instead, by challenging the McLaren contract, there is the possibility that Alpine could recoup some of its costs.
Formula 1 is the ultimate meritocracy, though a close second to that is the almighty dollar.
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