The F1 thread

stickyfiddle

skullfunkerry said:

stickyfiddle said:

boogieman said:

Alonso is going to make Lance look an even more rubbish driver. Although thinking about it, I don’t remember Lance ever admitting anything being his fault, it’s always “yeah I only qualified 14th because the set up wasn’t right/we couldn’t get the tyres switched on/this track doesn’t really suit the car.”

Well of course. He's the son of a billionaire - how could he ever be less than perfect? It's simply not possible! 

He always comes across as really whiny, like he really doesn't want to be there, even on the car radio. I think too that when Romain Grosjean had that crash in Bahrain every other driver was on the radio asking if he was okay, and Lance was moaning about the red flag because he'd made such a good start.

Well, you can't say his total lack of situational awareness is unique to that race...  

Boromedic

stickyfiddle

@Boromedic I dunno - do you have a pic of the strategy guy?  

stickyfiddle

Piastri confirmed as joining Alpine. Can't wait

euan

That’s news to Piastri

stickyfiddle

Oh wow! 

“I will not be driving for Alpine next year”

WTF?!

Cols

“ An Alpine statement said Piastri would race "in line with the commitments made by the team to the young Australian.”

Doesn’t sound like Piastri is totally on board with this, more like Alpine are nailing him down to preempt a move by McLaren.

stickyfiddle

Marcus Ericsson has some great ideas (and this was yesterday!!)

https://twitter.com/Ericsson_Marcus/status/1554122561126121473

After Alonso’s “middle finger to Alpine switch” this is how the rest of @F1 silly season will play out:

 Alpine Ocon-Gasly
 AlphaT Schumacher-Tsunoda
 Mclaren Norris-Piastri
 AlfaR Bottas-Zhou
 Haas Mag-Ricciardo
 Williams Albon-De Vries

 It’s called Silly season for a reason

fretmeister

https://twitter.com/oscarpiastri/status/1554527452231262210?s=21&t=UtRkCk6fC3Qd4moZoQtN2w

Piastri tweet 

stickyfiddle

Grosjean  

https://twitter.com/RGrosjean/status/1554536736319045633

O'Ward  

https://twitter.com/PatricioOWard/status/1554536782884216833

Cols

This is messy.

I can sympathise with Renault; they’ve undoubtedly sunk a lot of money into getting Piastri prepared for F1, and they won’t want to have another team waltz off with their investment.

And the fact that McLaren seems to have been courting young Oscar with the offer of the similarly-contracted Ricciardo’s race seat is highly embarrassing.

fretmeister

Apparently Alpine had an option on Piastri… but it ran out on Sunday!

stickyfiddle

fretmeister said:

Apparently Alpine had an option on Piastri… but it ran out on Sunday!

That’s a proper holy shit moment if true. Best start to silly season since Ferrari announced Saint before the delayed 2020 season even started!

Between this and the Palou situation in Indy (and assuming he’s going to replace DR at McLaren) Zak Brown has some of the biggest, brassiest balls in the paddock since Flav!

Could we even see a mid-season shuffle if Seb decides he doesn’t want to come back from holibobs?

euan

fretmeister said:

Apparently Alpine had an option on Piastri… but it ran out on Sunday!

That is so Renault. Announcing Piastri after saying that they've been unable to contact Webber was a bit of a joke move too.

Cols

fretmeister said:

Apparently Alpine had an option on Piastri… but it ran out on Sunday!

Really?  That’s classic.

Alonso’s managed by Briatore, Piastri’s managed by Webber… who used to be managed by Briatore.

This feels like a stitch-up to me.

fretmeister

Several different SM accounts saying it.

Guess we’ll find out soon! 

stickyfiddle

Great theory from a random on Reddit… 

I see only one explanation.
Piastri has already signed elsewhere on the promise of being able to land a far better seat than Alpine. A guaranteed F1 seat with a direct path to a top team seat. If not immediately, but in a few years time.
There’s no way he’d risk burning bridges at Alpine for anything less than the allure of a top team seat.
Neither Alpine, nor McLaren can make that offer. Not even Ferrari and Mercedes can.
The first two aren’t top teams, but firmly entrenched in the midfield. The latter have no room to place Piastri.
The only organization who can offer him both a guaranteed seat and a promise for a direct path towards a top team, is Red Bull.
Red Bull sign their drivers to the parent organization, rather than either of the 2 teams, allowing them to withdraw or reshuffle appointments as they see fit (except for Verstappen at this point in time).
Red Bull can easily bench either Gasly or Tsunoda to make room for Piastri. They could place Tsunoda/Gasly at Honda’s Super Formula team. Gasly could even be released to pursue the now vacant Alpine seat.
So Oscar could sign with Red Bull, get a seat at Alpha Tauri, with a view to getting into current championship contender Red Bull. That might be enough of a draw for Piastri, allowing him to be confident enough to publicly burn the bridges between him and Alpine.
An Alpha Tauri seat seems the most logical possibility all in all.
Former Red Bull F1 and Porsche WEC driver Mark Webber, Piastri’s current manager, is also an important part in this equation.
Webber still has good contacts within Red Bull and Porsche. Despite their differences in 2010 ~ 2013, Webber and Marko currently see eye to eye. I believe it was even Marko who helped Webber get the Porsche WEC drive post F1, using his own Porsche contacts. Marko won Le Mans in 1971 with the record setting 917, whilst being a Porsche factory driver.
Both Red Bull and Porsche might see promise in Piastri for 2026 and beyond, to possibly put him next to Verstappen, when Porsche is set to join forces with Red Bull, taking a 50% stake in its F1 activities.
 This might sound implausible to some, but if this pans out, it will simply be history repeating itself.

This happened earlier in 2014, when Marko was able to snatch away Verstappen from Mercedes by promising a Toro Rosso seat for 2015

skullfunkerry

stickyfiddle said:

Great theory from a random on Reddit… 

I see only one explanation.
Piastri has already signed elsewhere on the promise of being able to land a far better seat than Alpine. A guaranteed F1 seat with a direct path to a top team seat. If not immediately, but in a few years time.
There’s no way he’d risk burning bridges at Alpine for anything less than the allure of a top team seat.
Neither Alpine, nor McLaren can make that offer. Not even Ferrari and Mercedes can.
The first two aren’t top teams, but firmly entrenched in the midfield. The latter have no room to place Piastri.
The only organization who can offer him both a guaranteed seat and a promise for a direct path towards a top team, is Red Bull.
Red Bull sign their drivers to the parent organization, rather than either of the 2 teams, allowing them to withdraw or reshuffle appointments as they see fit (except for Verstappen at this point in time).
Red Bull can easily bench either Gasly or Tsunoda to make room for Piastri. They could place Tsunoda/Gasly at Honda’s Super Formula team. Gasly could even be released to pursue the now vacant Alpine seat.
So Oscar could sign with Red Bull, get a seat at Alpha Tauri, with a view to getting into current championship contender Red Bull. That might be enough of a draw for Piastri, allowing him to be confident enough to publicly burn the bridges between him and Alpine.
An Alpha Tauri seat seems the most logical possibility all in all.
Former Red Bull F1 and Porsche WEC driver Mark Webber, Piastri’s current manager, is also an important part in this equation.
Webber still has good contacts within Red Bull and Porsche. Despite their differences in 2010 ~ 2013, Webber and Marko currently see eye to eye. I believe it was even Marko who helped Webber get the Porsche WEC drive post F1, using his own Porsche contacts. Marko won Le Mans in 1971 with the record setting 917, whilst being a Porsche factory driver.
Both Red Bull and Porsche might see promise in Piastri for 2026 and beyond, to possibly put him next to Verstappen, when Porsche is set to join forces with Red Bull, taking a 50% stake in its F1 activities.
 This might sound implausible to some, but if this pans out, it will simply be history repeating itself.

This happened earlier in 2014, when Marko was able to snatch away Verstappen from Mercedes by promising a Toro Rosso seat for 2015

Definitely sounds plausible...

stickyfiddle

Yeah, that's what I thought! Everyone's talking about Mclaren but I'm not sure there's any reason to pick between them and Alpine, except that we know the McLaren is a bit tricky to drive (unless Alpine is that much of a shitshow internally..). 

I can see them dropping Yuki and attracting someone like Piastri with a promise of getting the next available slot at RB whenever it comes available.

stickyfiddle

Albon retained by Williams. Possibly because RB have too many drivers...??? 

https://twitter.com/alex_albon/status/1554829547006111749