Oscar Piastri’s Alpine Fiasco Pushed Him Out of the Race for Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes Seat, Claims F1 Expert

Despite Lewis Hamilton setting the Formula 1 driver market in disarray, the transfer front has gone silent lately. We have not seen any movement from Mercedes to replace their 7x world champion. However, many have made suggestions on who should replace the Brit, and among those many, we want to discuss one that stands out mainly because of the excitement factor. It’s the opinion of F1 expert Peter Windsor and he is talking about a hypothetical that would’ve changed the course of recent F1 history involving Oscar Piastri. Let us tell you about it.

Back in 2022, Alpine reserve driver Oscar Piastri, after spending a year on the sidelines waiting for his F1 debut, made headlines by announcing he won’t be driving for the French team. Soon after that, the young Australian signed for McLaren to replace Daniel Ricciardo. However, according to Windsor, as he discussed on the latest YouTube video on the Cameron F1 channel, if Piastri had stayed at Alpine and drove alongside Esteban Ocon, he would’ve been a strong candidate to replace Hamilton at Mercedes.

Windsor said, “If Oscar had stayed at Alpine and his teammate had been Esteban Ocon, I think he would’ve shown up Ocon in 2023. Then I said last year, he would’ve been in pretty good shape then to have got a decent drive (at Alpine).” Basing his hypothesis on the assumption of Piastri performing better than Ocon in the Alpine, apart from a few rookie errors, Windsor believed he would’ve surely been Mercedes’ no. 1 priority. Windsor added, “Think about this. Had he done that, who’d you think would be on the top of Mercedes’ list now to replace Lewis Hamilton?”

It surely would’ve been another headline-making move from the young Australian and Mercedes to replace their 7x world champion with a driver with the best rookie season since Hamilton. This move would’ve also secured their long-term future in the sport while making them extremely strong in terms of driver pairing with Piastri driving alongside a hugely talented George Russell.

However, in this silly world of Formula 1, you can’t rule anything out as Windsor believes this move is still possible because everything has a price.

Peter Windsor believes Mercedes can still secure the services of Oscar Piastri with a multi-million dollar move

This isn’t the first time Windsor expressed his desire to see Piastri occupy the Mercedes seat and replace Hamilton. A few weeks ago, he revealed when a friend asked him who would he like to see drive for the Silver Arrows in 2025, putting himself in the TP’s shoes his first thought was, “I would try to put Oscar Piastri in there.”

He then quickly contradicted himself and talked about the mega McLaren contract that binds the young Australian to the Papaya army. However, Windsor came up with a solution for that as well because, in this world of Formula 1, everything can be bought.

He added, “But he has a mega contract with McLaren. Of course, he is but there is a price for everything, and we’ve seen changes take place with payments before. Assuming Oscar is happy to go with it, let’s say for a number, $50 million, that Mercedes paid McLaren for the services of Oscar Piastri to release him from that McLaren contract.”

Read More: “We Were Screwed”: Oscar Piastri Highlights Lewis Hamilton Incident That Derailed Las Vegas GP Hopes

There aren’t many things in life $50 million can’t buy and according to Windsor, Mercedes can try to buy Piastri’s contract from McLaren. With these two statements from Windsor, one can assume what would his course of action would be if the former Ferrari boss was at the Mercedes helm. It would’ve been a statement move as well, something the Silver Arrows still need to make.