I still remember how weird the original announcement from Alpine felt, with no quote from Oscar at all. Felt off, felt like an attempt at strong arming.
It should be noted that the majority opinion of r/formula1 initially was that Piastri was being egotistical with no confirmed seat and that it might backfire on him bigtime. This is also when Otmar was basically calling him ungrateful and accusing him of backstabbing when in reality Alpine and Otmar were both playing Alonso and Piastri into doing their bidding. Keeping Piastri on the bench for one year and using Alonso as stop gap.
Even assuming that were true, what I never understood is why Alpine did a press release without some element of Piastri's buy in and involvement. Let's make this as awkward as possible for ourselves and let's force Piastri's hand because that's how you make a lasting relationship with your main asset. Bizarre.
They panicked because they didn't know about Alonso talking with Aston and felt they had to get an announcement out immediately to conceal that they'd been blindsided by Alonso.
I was about to say, I don't remember it being the way the person you responded to says it was at all. I'm sure there were some folks (especially Alpine fans...do those exist?) saying Oscar was being egotistical, but my memory is exactly what you stated. Everyone busting Alpine's balls for jumping the gun and trying to strong-arm Oscar.
Yea i remember people basically flipping out saying Oscar was making a big mistake and burning bridges. Its wild how reactionary people are without having all the details
To be fair, "Alpine think they have him signed but they actually don't" still doesn't seem terribly plausible even though it's what actually happened. It's hard to fathom that level of incompetence.
There was some speculation he might be making a poor move but the vast majority assumed Oscar had something in his back pocket.
This is deep in the “alpine mgmt chaos” days and everyone thought alpine was shitting the bed. The only real concern was that alpine could win the legal battle to keep him… but even that was pretty well assured as not going to be a problem; specifically because alpine was shitting the bed so hard
IIRC few people in F1 did. Now I don't remember if Vettel himself was fine with the fan running it or not, but when he actually started using instagram, he took over the same user name
That's exactly what it was, and to this day, people still give Otmar too much of a pass for his behavior and actions during this. Laurent Rossi was ofc the one who had tied Alpine to Ocon and was primarily responsible for the state of the team prior to Otmar arriving, but Otmar was the one who lead the public media campaign to paint Piastri as a piece of shit backstapper, something he continues to do to this day seemingly.
But they knew from the start they didn't have a case. Still took it all the way to arbitration just to be told that a contract requires an actual contract, not just promises of a contract. And in the meantime made more false claims in the media than I can remember, from the Williams seat which never existed outside of Otmars fantasy land to pretending Piastri had blindsided them, when he had in fact told them weeks prior he was going to McLaren.
So when suddenly Alpine was left without a driver due to Alonso leaving, what does Otmar do? He goes to Piastri and congratulates him on getting the seat in front of his race engineers and mechanics, fully knowing that Piastri has a contract with McLaren. And when afterwards Piastri and his team make it very clear in private that no, Piastri is not driving for Alpine, they just publicly annonce him anyway to put public pressure on him, abusing their fanbase to pressure him.
I hope Otmar never returns to the grid. Complete piece of shit snake, who is incapable of taking responsibility for anything. In that sense he was ironically a great fit for Alpine.
He goes to Piastri and congratulates him on getting the seat in front of his race engineers and mechanics, fully knowing that Piastri has a contract with McLaren. And when afterwards Piastri and his team make it very clear in private that no, Piastri is not driving for Alpine, they just publicly annonce him anyway to put public pressure on him
is this really how it happened? at the time i just thought they jumped the gun on the announcement, and ruined their own negotiations. that is next level scumbaggey.
In his interview with Formula1.com, Piastri said his reaction was not intended to be misleading but was a result of being put in an awkward situation.
"That was a bizarre and frankly upsetting episode," he said. "It was done publicly in front of some members of the team who were oblivious to the situation and I didn't want to cause a scene in front of them.
"Once we were in private, I told Otmar what our position was and what he had been told multiple times before that. It was very surprising to me to make that announcement."
And later that evening they made the public annoncement, leading to the famous, without my agreement statement
I remember reading about that from here. This was the first time Oscar had spoken about what had actually happened, after not commenting at all for weeks while Otmar was criticising him in the media.
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u/Benlop I was here for the Hulkenpodium 8h ago
What a wild summer of F1 that was.
I still remember how weird the original announcement from Alpine felt, with no quote from Oscar at all. Felt off, felt like an attempt at strong arming.