Notable events Tuesday’s around Alpine junior Oscar Piastri – already labeled Oscargate and Piasco online – appeared to confirm McLaren is intent on replacing an Australian in Daniel Ricciardo with another one.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown is currently playing a game of chicken with his superstar driver, waiting for him to leave his contract so he doesn’t have to pay a hefty penalty for ripping it up before it expires in late 2023 Ricciardo has exit terms from his deal, but it’s clear the eight-time race winner doesn’t want to drop his sword in order to get Brown out of the legal mess of his own making. create.
Multiple sources revealed to ESPN that Piastri has signed a deal with McLaren. While the exact terms of that deal are currently unclear, it is believed that Brown is determined to get him into the team’s race car. Piastri stated that “I won’t race in Alpine in 2023“emphasized that he sees his future with McLaren and not Alpine.
McLaren declined to comment when contacted by ESPN.
Piastri’s tweet drew considerable attention to a driver who hadn’t even turned the wheel of a formula one car during a major weekend, which speaks volumes for the man’s judgment. This man is 21 years old.
Formula 2 champion Piastri has a great track record at the junior level and is considered the best graduate from F1’s feeder series since the class of 2019 – George Russell, Lando Norris and Alex Albon. But his Formula One experience is limited to F1 car tests, most of which have been paid for by Alpine. The French manufacturer recently launched a test program of 5,000 km, which is already underway.
Of course, whether McLaren can even make Piastri be seen, with Alpine clearly ready to fight to keep their prodigy at the team and drive them in 2023, however, events Events in the past 24 hours may have worsened your relationship. parties. Alpine’s statement that Piastri was promoted as the team lays out his legal position that they have no doubt about the position he is contractually bound to race next season.
That decision will be made by the FIA’s contract accrediting panel and, despite the fast-paced drama on Tuesday afternoon, it could also take some time to settle on its own.
Regardless of how that plays out, McLaren’s position seems clear and it is difficult to see how their relationship with Ricciardo will develop beyond this point.
Ricciardo deserves better
It reflects very poorly on Brown and McLaren how they have treated Ricciardo over the past six months. Ricciardo, the only McLaren driver to win F1 since 2012, is the first to admit his performance has fallen short of the standards he sets at Red Bull and Renault but feels as though he has considered a scapegoat. deflected from the deeper problems at the team.
There have been other stories in 2022 – Mercedes’ violent bouncing car or Ferrari’s frequent pronouncements, including both – that have discredited the fact McLaren has become one of the The most disappointing story of this season. The team entered the year promising a return to the front of the grid, an opportunity offered by a major technical rule change, but a staggering fall from what they had promised in 2022.
While Ferrari, the team with which McLaren fought for third place in last year’s championship, rose to the top of the leaderboard with their new car this year, the British team has lost its way in the very piece. no-man’s land they found last year and are locked in a battle for fourth place (and now Piastri) with Alpine, well ahead of Mercedes and even further than the leading pair.
So while Ricciardo is struggling, and Norris, who may be a talent of his generation but has yet to win a race, has taken a much better result in the other car, point The bottom line is that McLaren delivers an inferior and less efficient car. Given the space up front, it’s fair to assume that McLaren will likely be fiddling around in the midfield for another year or two. Replacing Ricciardo with another driver won’t change that, especially one who will likely suffer the growing pains associated with any rookie driver in F1. Brown was fortunate that no more acute questions were raised about why, under his leadership, McLaren seemed unlikely to make a winning F1 race.
And that’s just the right side of it. Ricciardo remains one of the most marketable talents in F1 and has done wonders for the McLaren brand off the track. The recent appearance of OkX is related to Ricciardo, who is the brand ambassador of the crypto exchange. A relative unknown outside of motor racing like Piastri would not fill this void left by Ricciardo, who is one of the most unique personalities the sport has had in a long time. . It’s also unlikely Brown would want Norris to shoulder the majority of McLaren’s commercial duties if it were to risk affecting his racing form.
Ricciardo deserves credit for the way he has shouldered his own in an awkward situation, with Brown adding three drivers – Colton Herta, Pato O’Ward and Alex Palou – went to McLaren’s stable and made no secret of his desire to have Piastri on the team. Brown has shown disdain for contractual arrangements already in place this year. Piastri’s situation is very similar to what happened at IndyCar last month, when Chip Ganassi announced Palou would be staying with them, only when Palou tweeted that the press release had been sent without his knowledge. . An announcement Palou would join McLaren’s roster for 2023 came shortly after, although that part has yet to happen in Piastri’s case.
It’s been an open secret in F1 for several months Brown has been negotiating with Piastri and his manager, Mark Webber. Against that backdrop, and with Ricciardo doing a great deal of McLaren commercial work behind the scenes, there’s a lot going on off the track that can distract drivers from racing.
Most drivers will feel disrespected and some will publicize their feelings in the media but Ricciardo has been very professional in the face of Brown’s maneuver. The statement Ricciardo made last month saying he intends to view his contract until the end of 2023 is as close as we’ve seen him go to a public disagreement with his boss.
ESPN understands that the same holds true now, although Ricciardo is open to the fact that he needs to weigh his options that could steer clear of McLaren. Despite his difficulties this year and in the end, he will have no shortage of suitors. ESPN knows four different teams have contacted him in the past two weeks to assess his top spot. Teams appreciating a driver in the summer months is not uncommon in F1 but it is clear Ricciardo will still command the teams’ attention up and down the net – at best, he remains one of the F1’s top racer and passer, as well as one of the most marketable drivers on the grid at the moment and a particularly popular one in the US, a booming market than ever before for Formula One.
Ricciardo has an option of leaving on his McLaren contract and he could see the seat Piastri doesn’t want in Alpine a good landing spot. However, as the events of this week have shown, with Alpine losing Fernando Alonso ahead of Aston Martin and potentially losing Piastri to McLaren, there are questions about how well the French team has run and whether it will ever be more than a glorified midfield outfit. Switching to Ferrari or Mercedes, both long-held ambitions of Riccioardo, seems unlikely to come true but he can feel comfortable with examples of Kevin Magnussen and Valtteri Bottas this year – both joined competitive middleweight teams and were both excellent.
