Alpine CEO talks about Alonso’s departure for the first time, attacks Piastri

Laurent Rossi I told you what happened for the first time Alonso world Piastri In an interview on the official F1 website. In it, he revealed his next plan. alpine was to continue Alonso And they said when he finished his second stage in F1, alpine As WEC or even DakarAnd in turn, they made Alonso Piastri Starting in 2025, he had two seasons on loan at Williams to gain experience. According to Rossi, the driver could not offer Alonso more than his two-year offer due to the risk of losing the gem of his academy, but in the end, Piastri signed with mclaren, according to the team, secretly, according to the pilot, there is a notice. Oscar said he would not drive for Alpine in 2023 after the announcement of Alonso’s resignation and Alpine’s promotion to F1, and after a legal battle the CRB ruled in favor of the driver’s contract and Alonso He decided to transfer to Aston Martin, who had deposited a month before contacting him. Alpine received a lot of criticism for its handling of the situation. They had two pilots and none to accompany Esteban Ocon. Otmar Szafnauerboss alpinealready gave his take on the situation a few weeks ago, but now it was Alpine’s CEO’s turn. CEO of renault group, Luca de Meoin the paddock.

“Alonso is a gentleman”

“We wanted him to continue with us as an endurance and/or Dakar pilot. Rossi said in an interview. “So with Fernando, I would have loved to continue. He’s an incredible champion and will continue to be a legend of our brand, but it doesn’t work out and that’s life. we keep good relationship. He is an extraordinary champion, a gentleman and despite being under contract he continues to do great work for us (with Aston Martin). We are sad to say goodbye, but we are still family. this is life. Losing a champion is a blow, but it happens.

“I didn’t have high hopes for the Oscars. Frankly, I’m disappointed.”

Laurent Rossi has had strong words for Oscar Piastri, but he is hurt that the young pearl from the academy who helped Alpine reach F1 in the lower categories has put them in a tight spot. According to Rossi, Piastri had promised Alpine in the ‘head of the contract’ document that the pilot would grow in his academy for a long period of time before moving to Williams while Alonso continued to drive. However, Oscar decided to go to McLaren.

“We exercised our option on November 15 and agreed with the person responsible for the terms he said he would reserve, so he realized his commitment to the Oscar very quickly. It was scheduled to undergo a training program and find a pilot location in 2023 and 2024.

“We did just that. We announced it as a booking the next day. We immediately devised a training program and a 5,000 km test program, which we started in February with Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon. It’s a training programme.I’ve been driving with two F1 drivers and I was able to learn from them.” And he went on to confirm that he had “done 3,700km in August.

“We could have easily reached 5,000km. We gave him full access to the team, reports, technical meetings and he listened to the race with me most Sundays. Not only was he a reserve, he was arguably the most trained rookie of all time, he had an understanding of how a team was run and how an F1 driver within a team should be run. I knew, we felt fulfilled, and we went further, we wanted to do it right, so we hired people just to find seats for another team. I found the Williams seat at the end of the month.”

Piastri warned but en route: he said there was interest from McLaren but didn’t say he signed

But when Alpine found his place at Williams and McLaren’s opportunity opened up for him, Piastri decided to go his own way, leaving Alpine one hand behind and one in front. “When Williams’ chance was about to turn into a concrete deal, they[Piastri’s team]said ‘McLaren has a chance’.” Given the amount of money put into it (money and time), I was expecting a little more loyalty, so it felt a little odd. He didn’t say he was going to leave, said he had a chance. ”

“Then it was confirmed in July that Ricciardo would be leaving for the following year (a few days later Piastri signed for McLaren without anyone knowing). We may not have even had it, we may have had the chance[at McLaren]but the doors were closed, so Oscar was still with us. He was a reserve officer and we raised him to be a pilot.

“Otmar Szafnauer[Alpine Team Principal]saw him, told him we were promoting him and announced it. never told us, we still believed that the Williams seat was great and a great opportunity to learn without too much pressure, a very good team to learn from Yes, very experienced, three years with the team, a sort of Mercedes apprenticeship before being called up,” he pointed out. But yes, Oscar already had him signed to McLaren for a month.

defend management

“I can understand that he was attracted to the possibility of a better sporting challenge. Because we are the team that works.We offered it to him and we felt he would accept it.We plan to stay.But in the end, McLaren announced that Daniel would not continue. They had already tied Piastri.

“In line with our commitment to him, we act very logically. From our perspective, this is a very linear and simple story. I honestly don’t think we could have given him more drivers.”

Piastri was not under contract with Alpine, but the team considered him loyal

“He never signed the contract that we presented him with. We present the contracts over and over. They were never signed. He never had a contract with us.” We were expecting a lot more loyalty,” he commented, hurting the Australian driver with a lot of what Alpine gave him. Let

In a way, Alpine’s CEO has admitted the team made a mistake. “We made a few mistakes, we made a legal technical mistake. Did. Why did we do that? Give someone a lot, give them training, give them a backup role, give them a seat on the team, and they will support you for years and win championships with our support.’” he explained, very hurt.

“what George before him who went to (Russell) Williams before returning to mercedeswhat charles I went to (Leclerc) Sauber before returning to Ferrariwhat Max (Verstappen) etc. Sebastian (Vettel), both raced for Toro Rosso and then drove for Red Bull… they were all in the ‘junior’ team before their promotion. I’m a little surprised From a sports point of view, mclaren He may be more interesting than Williams based on pure track results, but after a lot of support and loyalty they’ve taken advantage of that back door to turn around and land what seems like a better deal for him. I didn’t expect to get them. Those aren’t the values ​​we stand for,” he said emphatically, attacking the Australian pilot.

Ratify Szafnauer

“This is how I look at history. I feel that I have remained loyal. We don’t share the same concepts of things, and perhaps we don’t share the same values, so it might be better to separate in this way.he concluded on Piastri, reaffirming Othmar Szafnauer’s position and strongly criticizing what happened in these weeks.

“The role is very clear. Othmar is the boss of the Formula 1 team. I have full confidence in him. Keep making a difference I have 16 direct reports so he was hired to help me distance myself.

“Nothing changed. It’s working fine. I made a mistake. Clearly a lesson will be learned.”

No rush to announce Alonso’s replacement for 2023

Laurent Rossi also mentioned the possibility of replacing Fernando Alonso at Alpine next year. Szafnauer said a few days ago that there are up to 14 candidates. Among them are Mick Doohan, Jack Doohan, and the sons of pilots like Mick Schumacher and Pierre Guthrie, but this last option is too complicated. He said the team would make a decision over time.

“There will be bumps in the road. I am not stupid. I know bad times will come, but the idea is to keep moving forward. Seats are in high demand.It’s okay.It will take time.I don’t want to make a hasty decision.This is a process led by Otmar (Szafnauer) who knows what’s best for the team.Information received from engineers The driver is important, but the car is the most important,” he concluded.