Alpine Formula 1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer will seek financial compensation from young Australian driver Oscar Piastre after the latter decided not to drive for the team in the 2023 season. Current team driver Fernando Alonso unexpectedly announced his decision to leave Alpine at the end of 2022 the Alpine team. The Aston Martin team in 2023 prompted Albin to announce that their reserve driver, Piastri, would be the primary driver in 2023. But Piastri, for his part, announced that he would not be driving for Alpine in 2023, and reports show that he signed with McLaren to drive it in 2023. For his part, Saffnauer said: “I expected more loyalty from Piastre. We have a contract with him and he signed it in November and we talked to our lawyers and they told us it’s a binding contract so part of that contract allows us to put an Oscar in one of our cars in 2023. We spent a lot of money on Biastri, where we did 7 tests with him, each costing several million dollars. We spent lots and lots of money on Biastri to prepare it for the future. If this future is not with us, it is logical and fair to demand compensation.”
Translated by Bernard Al Tayyar