Alpine workforce principal Otmar Szafnauer has hinted that the workforce might re-sign Daniel Ricciardo for 2023, amid the drama surrounding Oscar Piastri.
It has been a tumultuous week for the French System 1 workforce after their star driver Fernando Alonso revealed on Monday that he would becoming a member of Aston Martin subsequent season, a transfer that utterly blindsided Szafnauer.
Then on Tuesday, Alpine introduced reserve driver Piastri can be taking Alonso’s seat for 2023, however simply an hour later the Australian posted a press release claiming that this was not true, and he wouldn't be racing for the workforce, prompting a lot confusion throughout the F1 group.
It's stated that as a part of Piastri’s contract with Alpine the workforce needed to discover him a drive for subsequent 12 months earlier than a sure deadline, supposedly July 31 which has after all handed, and in the event that they didn’t, he was free to search out his personal.
Alpine’s authentic plan had been to maintain Alonso, in addition to Esteban Ocon who's contracted till 2024, for subsequent 12 months whereas loaning Piastri out, however following Alonso’s sudden departure the workforce now wish to promote Piastri and consider that he's contractually obliged to drive for them.
Nevertheless, complicating the entire matter, Piastri and his supervisor, former Crimson Bull driver Mark Webber, have been supposedly negotiating with McLaren about driving there as an alternative and given the assertion launched on Tuesday it appears there have to be a deal in place for that to occur, with System 2 champion Piastri now not considering racing for Alpine.
Whereas none of that is 100% confirmed, if Piastri has signed for McLaren, it will open up a much bigger can of worms as they have already got two drivers contracted for 2023, particularly Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo.
Ricciardo has struggled immensely since becoming a member of the Woking-based workforce from Alpine, then-known as Renault, in 2021, and whereas he himself has publicly insisted that he'll see his McLaren contract by way of, the Piatsri signing suggests the workforce have very completely different concepts.
However all this hypothesis has led some to counsel that Ricciardo might return to Alpine for subsequent 12 months, a deal which will really go well with all events, and Szafnauer appeared to trace that he's open to the concept of bringing the Australian again.
Talking about how they had been dealing with their driver scenario, Szafnauer, as quoted by AS, stated: ‘Give us a while.
‘Oscar is our primary candidate. We haven’t obtained to the “what if it’s not Oscar?” stage, however lots of drivers have referred to as, and Ricciardo is an effective advice.’
.
.
Post a Comment