2022 Alpine F1 Team

[Big Tea]

Ok so what are the options for 2023 ?

Gasly or Ricciardo ?
Piastri who's gonna be legally obliged to assume is contract ?

I would guess their first choice is Danny, and that he is willing to go there. 3 happy sides move on.

I would also guess that the 'Piastri affair' is going to roll on for some time yet, and if I were running the team I think Gasly is a better option.

I am not saying a better driver, but he has several years and several cars experience.

[SmallSoldier]

Ok so what are the options for 2023 ?

Gasly or Ricciardo ?
Piastri who's gonna be legally obliged to assume is contract ?

Gasly has been confirmed by AT, so unless there is another deal in the works, he shouldn’t be an option

Piastri, no one really knows and everyone speculates… But chances of him staying with Alpine are low.

If all the rumors are true, then Ricciardo is probably at the top of the list for Alpine to drive in 2023.

[continuum16]

I think that this situation, regardless of how it plays out, should lead to a wholehearted rethink of the "junior academy" structure. Alpine/Renault have never had a junior driver actually race for the team, despite having this "junior academy" of theirs. What is the point? They supported Zhou, who went to Alfa and now races against Alpine. I can't think of anyone else who has ever been part of the "Renault Academy" (I'm talking 2016-present, not people like RoGro) who has even made the F1 grid? And when they finally do have one, they mismanage the driver to the point where he leaves before he has even done one lap in an official session. Really they have a track record of driver mismanagement, stemming all the way back to 2016:

2016* - Signed Hulkenberg for 2017 and wanted Magnussen, but would not offer more than a 1-year deal, so he leaves, leaving them with Palmer who was clearly not their first pick.
*A late start after buying Lotus, I won't slam them for Magnussen and Palmer because there was no time to get their act together

2017 - Fired Palmer before the season even ended, and replaced him with Sainz on loan from Red Bull.

2018 - Hired Ricciardo for a huge fee and fired Sainz after one season, despite doing a respectable job, and replacing Hulkenberg as de facto number 1.

2019 - Fired Hulkenberg and hired Ocon alongside Ricciardo despite Ocon not even being in F1.

2020 - After being ditched by Ricciardo before the season even started, they replaced him with Alonso, a driver who despite being immensely talented is known to be a management handful, rather than planning for the future.

2021 - Sign Ocon to a three year contract despite being soundly beaten by his teammate the previous season. When their junior driver wins F2 they fail to get him into a race seat at their team or another team, or even another series.

2022 - Faced with the question to give the remaining seat to Alonso or Piastri for 2023, they procrastinate to the point where their first option has signed with another team behind their back, and their second option appears to have done the same.

With the exception of Ocon, no driver has been at Alpine/Renault for more than 2 seasons.

[diffuser]

Ok so what are the options for 2023 ?

Gasly or Ricciardo ?
Piastri who's gonna be legally obliged to assume is contract ?

I would guess their first choice is Danny, and that he is willing to go there. 3 happy sides move on.

I would also guess that the 'Piastri affair' is going to roll on for some time yet, and if I were running the team I think Gasly is a better option.

I am not saying a better driver, but he has several years and several cars experience.

Alpine believe they can Force Piastri to stay for 3 years. He can either drive for them or not but Alpine think that he's under contract with them as long as they offered him a contract. Which would mean he can't drive anywhere else. So I think we need to wait till the lawyers figure that out.

[Jolle]

I think that this situation, regardless of how it plays out, should lead to a wholehearted rethink of the "junior academy" structure. Alpine/Renault have never had a junior driver actually race for the team, despite having this "junior academy" of theirs. What is the point? They supported Zhou, who went to Alfa and now races against Alpine. I can't think of anyone else who has ever been part of the "Renault Academy" (I'm talking 2016-present, not people like RoGro) who has even made the F1 grid? And when they finally do have one, they mismanage the driver to the point where he leaves before he has even done one lap in an official session. Really they have a track record of driver mismanagement, stemming all the way back to 2016:

2016* - Signed Hulkenberg for 2017 and wanted Magnussen, but would not offer more than a 1-year deal, so he leaves, leaving them with Palmer who was clearly not their first pick.
*A late start after buying Lotus, I won't slam them for Magnussen and Palmer because there was no time to get their act together

2017 - Fired Palmer before the season even ended, and replaced him with Sainz on loan from Red Bull.

2018 - Hired Ricciardo for a huge fee and fired Sainz after one season, despite doing a respectable job, and replacing Hulkenberg as de facto number 1.

2019 - Fired Hulkenberg and hired Ocon alongside Ricciardo despite Ocon not even being in F1.

2020 - After being ditched by Ricciardo before the season even started, they replaced him with Alonso, a driver who despite being immensely talented is known to be a management handful, rather than planning for the future.

2021 - Sign Ocon to a three year contract despite being soundly beaten by his teammate the previous season. When their junior driver wins F2 they fail to get him into a race seat at their team or another team, or even another series.

2022 - Faced with the question to give the remaining seat to Alonso or Piastri for 2023, they procrastinate to the point where their first option has signed with another team behind their back, and their second option appears to have done the same.

With the exception of Ocon, no driver has been at Alpine/Renault for more than 2 seasons.

It's all management. The mess Alpine/Renault is going trough the past seasons has very similar elements of for instance the period of McLaren from 2013 till Zak Brown figured a way to stabilise the team a few years ago. Ferrari shared the same kind of disarray too, and still does in some ways.
If you look at the teams that dominating F1 for the past decade, Mercedes and RedBull, you see that they are both relative young teams but with very stable management and structure (both in a very different way) and with both, the management and important people are not busy with unhealthy internal politics. Even smaller teams that get this kind of health management together, flourish.

[AR3-GP]

I think that problem today started with Max. He is exceptional driver, with 15 yrs old was already in the car. In the second season he was in top team winning a race. Kids today they just don't want to wait. They want to be out of school, directly to F1 and top team.
Alpine suppported Piastri his whole career and because of that he won lower championships and has a potential now to become F1 driver. It is also a bit rude of him to not give something back for example at least one season as their driver, especially because Alpine has now trouble finding a good driver for next season.

Alpine weren't going to give Piastri a race seat so why should he put his career on the sideline? Otmar said as long as Alonso kept performing, they would renew him.

The uncomfortable truth of the matter if that Ocon's seat is the one that should have been in question. An Alonso-Piastri race lineup would have served the team well but would lose out on having the French driver in the french team. Ocon is solid, but Alpine need to be preparing their Verstappen. If that was Piastri, they have surely blown it. Harsh for Ocon, but this is a business, not a charity.

[jeffpilot]

Any team principal with half a brain would have had alonso and piastri as next years lineup, and bought ocon out of his contract or whatever. it would of been one of the best line ups in the whole field. F1 is a tough business and from going to having potentially the best lineup in F1, if piastri is all he’s cracked up to be, they have ocon and ricciardo. When has alonso not performed?

[Jolle]

What is this dislike of Ocon from some people? He's scored the best two finishes of the team (first and second) while his much more experienced team mates only managed third. Also, compared to his well publicly loved team mates (Ricciardo and Alonso) he is very loyal. Ricciaro announced his departure of the team a year before his contract was up, destabilising a whole year and Alonso, well... how to publicly shame your employer while staying quiet. Even when Ocon was a Mercedes youngling and things didn't go as planned, no bad words or burned bridges. Or is it just that he doesn't come across as the next Verstappen or Leclerc?

[F1since1980]

I can't figure out all the dislike towards Ocon either. This is what Rossi had to say at the French GP about Ocon:

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/vide ... 36038.html

[jeffpilot]

No dislike of Ocon, nothing personal. It’s just that Alonso is in a different league. This is F1 and all the drivers are stars but there are few superstars, and Alonso is one and Piastri may be one. 3 into 2 doesn’t go. Can you honestly say Ocon is world championsh material….the answer is no. So you keep your world champion and enlist potential world champion to learn from him.

[F1since1980]

I think that this situation, regardless of how it plays out, should lead to a wholehearted rethink of the "junior academy" structure. Alpine/Renault have never had a junior driver actually race for the team, despite having this "junior academy" of theirs. What is the point? They supported Zhou, who went to Alfa and now races against Alpine. I can't think of anyone else who has ever been part of the "Renault Academy" (I'm talking 2016-present, not people like RoGro) who has even made the F1 grid? And when they finally do have one, they mismanage the driver to the point where he leaves before he has even done one lap in an official session. Really they have a track record of driver mismanagement, stemming all the way back to 2016:

2016* - Signed Hulkenberg for 2017 and wanted Magnussen, but would not offer more than a 1-year deal, so he leaves, leaving them with Palmer who was clearly not their first pick.
*A late start after buying Lotus, I won't slam them for Magnussen and Palmer because there was no time to get their act together

2017 - Fired Palmer before the season even ended, and replaced him with Sainz on loan from Red Bull.

Can't blame them on that on... Palmer was pretty bad.

2018 - Hired Ricciardo for a huge fee and fired Sainz after one season, despite doing a respectable job, and replacing Hulkenberg as de facto number 1.

Ocon was supposed to be hired by Renault (deal with Toto and I think almost signed) but then Ricciardo became available... Can you blame them... I blame the stupid money they paid him to get him!

2019 - Fired Hulkenberg and hired Ocon alongside Ricciardo despite Ocon not even being in F1.

Hulkenberg threw away a podium in Germany with a crash... Guy just could never get on that podium - forever his reputation in F1 despite having some changes to get it... that was probably his last chance and he blew it and had he got it, it would have been difficult to justify getting rid of him for Ocon. Plus, probably felt bad about what happened with Ocon and Toto - French team needs a French driver...

2020 - After being ditched by Ricciardo before the season even started, they replaced him with Alonso, a driver who despite being immensely talented is known to be a management handful, rather than planning for the future.

Cyril needed a headline after having egg on his face with Daniel.
A 2 year deal was not bad for a 40 year old, out of the sport for 2 years it could have been the Michael Shumacher version 2.0 all over again... Plus Alonso could not get another seat anywhere else. If Danny had stayed, I don't think Mclaren would have taken him back, but locked up Carlos to stay with them and Ferrari would have probably said no either. We know RB and Merc did not want him even for free. Alonso's has a reputation with teams and it is very real. He got a bit lucky and used Alpine IMO

2021 - Sign Ocon to a three year contract despite being soundly beaten by his teammate the previous season.

He was out for a whole season and did not have much experience to fall back on like Alonso or Schumacher. Struggled in the beginning but improved as the season went on- got a podium the following season! and showed good improvement.

When their junior driver wins F2 they fail to get him into a race seat at their team or another team, or even another series.

One of the main problems is that they lack a junior team or at least an alliance with a smaller team to feed academy drivers into the system. Look at RB and Merc and Ferrari... Fault of Renault for not playing big and spending the money to get it going.

2022 - Faced with the question to give the remaining seat to Alonso or Piastri for 2023, they procrastinate to the point where their first option has signed with another team behind their back, and their second option appears to have done the same.

IMO Alonso should have given Alpine the chance to match it, but instead gave them false information that he was fine with it and going to sign only to hid behind AM's twitter account! Not cool or professional to do to a team that helped you win your only 2WC and crashed a car on purpose so that you can win a GP, plus one that took a gamble on your return after 2 years away. - Alpine did the right thing IMO and put the team first rather than the driver. He is going on 42 and 1 year deal + option for extension seemed right in my book. I don't think any other team boss would have done different (maybe Cyril). But Alonso thought different and that's fine, but if he really wanted to stay he could have tried to negotiate with Alpine and given them the chance to match the deal. Obviously valves Stroll over his F1 family from the past... 4th place is probably out of reach now as Alonso will be getting his tan on a lounge chair on the side of the track... rather than help the cause. This did not end well.

With the exception of Ocon, no driver has been at Alpine/Renault for more than 2 seasons.

Agree, I could not figure out why Rossi did a 3 year or 4 year deal instead of a two year - made no sense to me.

[Redragon]

The rumor is that Ocon’s salary was going to be higher than what they proposed Alonso for his renewal, so 2 big salaries is probably a big burden for the Team.

In regards to Piastri and having an option, if what is said is true (that there was a deadline to place him somewhere else), if they did let it lapse then Piastri is in no obligation to stay with the Team… There are suggestions that they were going to place him at Williams, but with no contract / announcement it is just suggestions, Piastri could have easily stayed as reserve driver next year too if Alonso signed his renewal and Williams got a different driver to replace Latiffi (or Latiffi stayed)… If you are Piastri, do you stay with so much insecurity of your future? You already missed a season (2022) and there is potential to miss another one (2023)… I know I would take the offer from McLaren under those circumstances.

Wow, not sure how they ever could give that much money to Ocon.

There is a dead line but Everything I ever heard was for 2023. Like I said Doesn't matter what Piastri wants, it comes down to what he signed in his contract with Alpine. Maybe McLaren's Lawyers have found an out for him. I don't know but I haven't see 1 Red bull driver get out of a contract unless RedBull allowed them too. So I'm not sure why Alpine wouldn't have cut and pasted one of those.

I think I'll try lay out a plausible scenario here. Piastri, as is widely being speculated, had a clause in his contract for Alpine to find him an F1 seat before 31st July. Alpine clearly thought they would have Alonso for one more year. They wanted to see how Piastri does with one year in Williams who have been rumored to be in talks for an engine deal as well. So a convinient option with flexibility in financial structuring there. Webber and Seidl have ties from Toyota days and Piastri camp probably preferred to go to Mclaren who also have Ricciardo under contract for 2023.

Piastri's tweet would suggest that he and McLaren are in firm agreement that he wants to go there and they will sort out the Ric situation on their end whichever way they decide. Buyout or something. Alpine probably confident of re-signing Alonso and unaware of the status of the deal with Mclaren, let Piastri's contract deadline lapse.

Now, the legal conundrum will probably be when Alpine claims that Piastri's exit clause isnt triggered because they offered him a Williams seat before the deadline, whereas his camp will contend that it was merely an exploratory discussion and nothing more.

I think the salary part is just smoke screen. They tried to strong arm Alonso on length of contract and fell asleep at the wheel with Piastri. Now they will try to make it a legally drawn out battle to keep Piastri and lots of accusatory statements to save face.

Alonso has been clear for long time that he wants multi year contract, no one year, since April has said in multiple interviews is in talks with other teams but priority is Alpine.

Alpine have been blame him for his lower points and not assuming responsability of their reavility issues, specially Otmar on public interviews, Ocon behaviour on last races haven't help and they have been negotiating with Piastri as token, either you sing this or we have piastri.

Spanish media are reporting that Stroll senior made an offer in April to Alonso but was depending of Vettel decision on retiring or renewing for one more year , as Stroll senior offered him one year more.

Once Vettel announced his retirement the negotiations based on Spanish media sources are that Alonso met on Thursday evening and negotiated the contract the 4 days Hungary prix lasted. Signing on Sunday evening (I wouldn't be surprise Ocon incident helped to print down the ink without remorce).

[F1since1980]

Interesting that Stroll only offered Vettel a one year deal... A WC that is still relatively young... Maybe that's why he really left who knows. Well, if that is true than Alonso should have given the chance to Alpine to match. What is up with these drivers and their egos? Renault/Alpine and Alonso go way back and have history and success and it's really his F1 family. He really did not what to stay and should have been upfront about it, despite what he said to the media... Was Ocon too much to handle... starting to think so... Alonso likes having a #2 driver next to him either in status or by destroying him during the season. He did not destroy Ocon - the kid has held his own. Stroll relished the idea of sticking it to Otmar and Alpine - probably fancied himself a $1,000 bottle of Champagne when the news hit. Sad for Alpine.

[F1since1980]

I honestly would love it if Vettel changed his mind and made a deal with Alpine- BLUE IS HIS FAVORITE COLOR. COME ON VETTEL!!!

[djos]

What is this dislike of Ocon from some people? He's scored the best two finishes of the team (first and second) while his much more experienced team mates only managed third. Also, compared to his well publicly loved team mates (Ricciardo and Alonso) he is very loyal. Ricciaro announced his departure of the team a year before his contract was up, destabilising a whole year and Alonso, well... how to publicly shame your employer while staying quiet. Even when Ocon was a Mercedes youngling and things didn't go as planned, no bad words or burned bridges. Or is it just that he doesn't come across as the next Verstappen or Leclerc?

Ocon is a decent driver, I certainly have no issues with him.

But let’s not forget, Daniel announced he was leaving when Renault were still deciding if they wanted to stay in F1. This was around the time Ghosn has been convicted of fraud in Japan and the entire Renault / Nissan group was in the middle of a leadership crisis.