Piastri’s chances of Alpine F1 seat depend on Alonso - Budkowski

Marcin Budkowski has admitted that Oscar Piastri’s chances of landing a full-time Alpine drive in Formula 1 depend on whether Fernando Alonso wants to remain in the sport past 2022.

Connor McDonagh

04 Dec 2021

Oscar Piastri (AUS) Alpine Academy Driver.
© xpbimages.com

Piastri is on course to win the Formula 2 championship, moving 40 points clear of 2022 Alfa Romeo F1 driver Guanyu Zhou after securing a remarkable fourth consecutive pole position of the year in Jeddah on Friday.

With Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso locked in for next year, and Alpine with no junior team on the grid to place its young drivers, Piastri will be forced to spend a year on the sidelines as the French outfit’s reserve and test driver.

Ocon is tied to Alpine until 2024, while Budkowski confirmed Alonso’s future will depend on the team’s competitiveness and whether the two-time champion is motivated to continue.

“If the car is quick and Fernando is happy, then we will have one type of discussion,” he said.

“If that’s not the case then we will have a different type of discussion. But certainly we have a great talent with Oscar in the wings and if there is no seat available at Alpine I’m sure we will find a solution for him to drive a Formula 1 car and stay in the Alpine family.”

From next year, teams will be required to run a young driver in at least two practice sessions during the season, giving Piastri an opportunity to impress during a race weekend.

Budkowski revealed that Piastri’s role as reserve driver will involve significant test mileage and intense preparation to prepare him for 2023, even if that’s not with Alpine itself.

“Oscar’s announcement, beyond being an announcement as such, if you want, that he will be our reserve driver, comes with an awful lot of other things if you want,” he explained.

“Oscar is going to be very involved in the simulator and he is already doing some of this but not as much as we’d like because obviously he is racing in Formula 2 and he still needs to win that championship this year but he is going to be doing a lot of development work, a lot of simulator work, spending time in the factory, very close with the engineers, he’s going to be doing quite a lot of track running as well.

“Well, he’s going to run in Abu Dhabi for the post-season test this year. The regulations next year imposes to run him at two free practice sessions. We’ll do a bespoke testing programme for him in Formula 1 cars, to make sure he really, really ramps up. We'll develop Oscar a lot, beyond just taking him to the races as our third driver.”