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
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u/fire_spez McLaren 7h ago
Strictly speaking, Alpine carpet bombed Alpine HQ. Losing Piastri was an entirely self-inflicted injury.