Oscar Piastri denies appointment
There has been great confusion about Fernando Alonso’s intended successor at Alpine’s Formula 1 team. The team says Oscar Piastri will join Alpine as an F1 driver next year, Piastri himself denies this.
On Monday, Alpine driver Fernando Alonso surprised friend and foe with his move to Aston Martin’s Formula 1 team next year. In fact, Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer stated, according to Motorsport that he had to learn this news through the Aston Martin press release. Szafnauer himself was not informed by Alonso. However, that did not complete the confusion at Alpine. On Tuesday, Alpine announced that F2 driver and Alpine reserve driver Oscar Piastri will succeed Alonso with the team next year, but a little later Piastri denied this via social media.
At the time of writing, Alpine’s announcement of Piastri as a new driver stands still online. That is also the case for Piastrian’s statement. The 21-year-old Australian writes: “I understand that Alpine F1 without my permission issued a press release late this afternoon that I will be driving for them next year. This is not true and I have not signed a contract with Alpine for 2023. I will not be driving for next year Alpine.” Alpine has not yet responded to this. There are rumors that Piastri has already signed a contract with the McLaren team. So the competitors. In any case, he seems completely taken aback by Alpine’s statement and the chaos seems complete within that team. To be continued…
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