Zak Brown & Co’s Nightmare Start Raises Burning Questions Around Oscar Piastri’s Controversial Decision

While Alpine lost Oscar Piastri, they are winning in life. The reigning midfield rulers from 2022 had a good showing in Jeddah. This, despite the penalty saga they began with at the curtain raiser, Bahrain. However, their principal competitor, McLaren, who lost the midfield battle to them, is now losing to the entire field. With two races in, the disaster that has been unfolding at Piastri’s chosen ones is unprecedented. And it makes one wonder if the Australian chose correctly.

The legacy of the Woking team precedes itself and they definitely have a pull. This is the reason why Lando Norris chose the team and probably why Piastri did too. But there was obviously more to the F2 champion’s decision. Alpine had a double world champion in Fernando Alonso as their main driver and who would replace the matador with a rookie no matter how talented the latter is. And not foreseeing that Nando will jump ships, Oscar set out to find immediate stability in Formula 1. But that stability at the bottom of the grid in the first two races was probably not what he was looking for.

As quoted by F1 Maximaal.nl, Peter Windsor in a Twitch Stream had said, “You have to admit Alpine isn’t doing too bad, Mr. Piastri. Look, I really expect McLaren to perform better again, but at the moment it will probably hurt that he rejected Alpine and that McLaren is now failing. Who knows, maybe in four years he’ll be world champion with McLaren. That could well happen. He has talent, he has speed, there is no doubt about that.”

Analyzing the whole Alpine move, Windsor stated, “So Piastri thought Alpine didn’t want him, but that wasn’t the case at all. As a result, he has now made the wrong choice, because Alpine is simply doing better. Anyway, maybe next year it will be completely different.”

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For the uninitiated, a few months ago, an ugly public tussle between Oscar, Alpine, and McLaren. While many painted Oscar as the ungrateful villain, his manager, Mark Webber, stepped in to clarify the rookie’s intentions.

Oscar Piastri wanted to be as loyal as possible

A very, very talented rookie was up for grabs. Alpine had the first right on him, having invested millions to bring him up to the Formula 1 level. But the team didn’t want to say goodbye to Fernando Alonso. Not seeing a future at the French team, Oscar and his manager and ex-F1 driver, Mark Webber, cracked a deal with the orange team.

However, post the boot Alonso gave to Alpine and Oscar, following in his footsteps, caused an uproar. Webber later clarified the rookie’s intentions. Backing him, Webber told Speedcafe, “He was actually quite calm. Ironically, he showed a lot of loyalty in these circumstances. All the sponsors and people who had been there since he was eight had a lot less patience. Oscar wanted to be as loyal as possible. It was uncertain what his future would look like. But McLaren wanted to change something anyway, whether with Oscar or with someone was different, Oscar was available, so we had to respond quickly.”

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Do you think Oscar’s gamble will pay off? Will McLaren turn the slump around?