The Argentine blames the team for not being clear on Alonso’s future after Hungary
He sees the Alpine announcement as a desperate move to put pressure on
Facundo Regalia points out that Alpine hasn’t handled Oscar Piastri’s situation well over the past two years. The Argentinian driver did not understand that the French structure announced the young Australian as an official driver for 2023, when his plans for next season had already come out of Enstone.
Piastri was one of the great protagonists of this ‘Silly Season’, especially after having refused his promotion to the position of official pilot of Alpine for 2023. Regalia believes that the board of directors of the French team has handled the situation very badly, both by not knowing that the future of Fernando Alonso was away from the team and in turn, announcing “desperately” Piastri put pressure.
“Me, being very involved in the paddock and having a certain relationship with Oscar’s environment, I knew McLaren. In fact, when I saw the initial announcement from Alpine, I didn’t understand anything. I think Piastri’s announcement was totally mishandled and poorly launched, with very bad timing from Alpine,” Regalia commented in an interview on SoyMotor’s Twitch channel.
“It was like trying to balance the situation with the announcement of Fernando Alonso at Aston Martin. With that, in a way, also putting pressure on Oscar to try to change the decision he has already made. This confirms the poor outlook and the bad management at the human level that there is by Otmar and Alpine, because it is impossible for them to learn of Fernando’s decision from the press and, in turn, from a tweet from Oscar,” he adds.
Regalia assures that it was incomprehensible to delay Piastri’s arrival in Formula 1 for a year after all the success he had achieved in the lower categories. The origin of this setback was this 2022 which passed reserve pilot without racing and after Alpine did not know how to keep its word find you a place before July 31Piastri was already completely free to negotiate on his own.
“I think the Oscars theme has been around for a long time, while they somehow didn’t give him the opportunity to give him a seat in Alpine or have negotiated a deal with another structure for Oscar to be in Formula 1. It was a lack of respect for motorsport that Oscar was not already on the Formula 1 grill this year. That’s where all this movement is coming from,” he explained.
“Each driver has their own clauses and each structure has their own philosophy when it comes to managing drivers. I think Piastri probably had an agreement that if he had achieved the sporting goals he had achieved, Alpine was responsible for putting it online active in Formula 1 this year. I understand that it could not be located and, from there, certain points of the alpine slope begin to be pierced”, he insisted.
Finally, Regalia understands that Alpine had in their plans to sign Alonso soon, because in case of knowing that the Asturian would leave, they had not taken long to start negotiations with Piastri. However, it was not so the future of the young Aussie seems to be in McLaren and the Argentine believes that both teams have taken a big step.
“I can understand Alpine in the fact that they believed that Fernando was going to continue, because if they had the information that he intends to leave, then you sit down with Mark to confirm the Piastri-Alpine project in Formula 1. McLaren is a great strategic move. With the growth phase and the evolution that they have, and with a partner like Lando, it will be a very good line-up,” Regalia said in conclusion.
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