F1 2022 thread - see post 1 for rules

Alonso is ruthless. He lies straight to the teams face on Sunday and told them he was going to sign with them. Then Monday morning they found out in the AM pess release that he had already signed with AM.

I heard a great conspiracy theory which i think was from The-Race. They implied that Alonso strung Alpine along until after Sunday at the request of his bezzy-mate Mark Webber (Piastri's agent). Reason being that Piastri's contract says he became free to find his own seat if Alpine hadn't sorted one for him by midnight on Sunday 31 July.

So suggestion is alonso waited until after that deadline to announce his AM drive, which helped Webber and Piastri in their negotiations. Piastri wins because he is free. If he's obliged to race for Alpine then he can't negotiate much for wages or conditions such as an equal share of upgrades. But he can negotiate more of that stuff if he's free. Plus he could go to mclaren which would be a massive bonus.

Not saying I believe it, but it's certainly interesting.

Webber was under Flavio's management too, I think.

Because he appealed that straight away and it was overturned.

Today's installment of this story

I've no idea how reliable the source is.

Sorry, have edited my post above. It was from Autosport 2010

And if you read on, "In a statement released on Monday, the FIA said both Briatore and Symonds had expressed regret and apologised for their actions."

"In return, they have asked the FIA to abandon the ongoing appeal procedure, but without the FIA recognising the validity of the criticisms levelled against the WMSC's decision of 21 September 2009, as well as to waive the right to bring any new proceedings against them on the subject of this affair," the FIA said."

So, as I said , not exactly overturned. The FIA agreed to abandon their appeal after "Briatore and Symonds had expressed regret and apologised for their actions.".

I deliberately used the words . not exactly overturned, to indicate that the matter did not end there but rather there was an out of court settlement in which Briatore was banned from F1. But this time the ban was until 2013, rather than indefinitely.

I thought the clarification was useful information to people reading this topic,. You obviously do not agree .

His driving is ragged at times though, as it was in 2018 with McLaren. If he had a Red Bull or Ferrari under him he could get away with a few mistakes but not in an Alpine or Aston Martin.

Well unless they pay off the remaining year of Danny Ric's contract, I don't see that as too smart from McLaren

I can see why McLaren would want to dump Ricciardo for Piastri, but I still don't understand why Oscar would choose McLaren over Alpine. Alpine are ahead of McLaren in the championship and are a full works constructor. Neither of them look like challenging the top 3 any time soon but there's nothing to suggest McLaren is a better opportunity, particularly when he's been embedded with Alpine as a junior driver and they're so invested in making him take the next step, while he'll arguably be a number 2 to Norris at McLaren. Then again I also didn't understand why Alonso would jump ship to a much slower Aston Martin, so maybe Alpine are just a complete mess behind the scenes with no optimism looking forward.

I also don't see why everyone is assuming this means Daniel will go to Alpine - I just can't see them or any other F1 team wanting him. He's performing poorly and trending down over time. Surely they'd rather look to another free agent like Mick Schumacher who's performing reasonably well and trending up over time. I still reckon Daniel's future will be a negotiated move to one of the other McLaren teams in Indy or Formula E that honours the payment terms of his contract.

Not to defend his poor form, however Ricardo has some points. Piastri has never raced an F1 car, sure he's tested one, but hot lapping isn't racing properly, he could wither under the pressure and not score any

Interesting video on the whole Piastri fiasco (not sure how to embed):

More Piastri/Alpine F1 shocks by Peter Windsor - YouTube

Apparently Alpine's deal with Piastri was that if he wasn't going to drive for them next year he'd have a seat at Williams for a year with Alpine financially backing him, so he knew he'd be driving in F1 next season. Guess he didn't want to go to Williams when there was a chance to join McLaren, and also appears to explain why Alpine were only offering Alonso a 1 year deal, if of course it's true at all.

I for one would love to see Daniel at Alpine and back to racing good again next year as he neven should have went to Mclaren in the first place. It was a mistake but then he never should have left Red Bill either.

I wish Daniel and Alonso all the best for next year and I wish Piastri and his management a horrible time next year as punishment for him running away from the team that gave him the opportunity to get into F1.

He would not have being sitting on the sidelines again for another season. He would have been in the Alpine who had him as there junior like you say and spent lots of effort and time on him. Alpine are also ahead of Mclaren at the moment in the constructors standings. He should have being happy when they said he was racing for them instead of going to Mclaren.

Then if it did not work out at Alpine for him next year he could have went to Mclaren then.

You can see Flavio Briatore pulling strings in the background here He is Alonso's manager and was Mark Webber's during his driving career- the same Webber who is now Piastri's manager and who also happens to be a close personal friend of Fernando.

But as far as he knew when looking around for other seats, alpine were not going to be able to offer him a seat for 23 due to Alonso signing for another year.

If it was as simple as that, I wouldn't blame Piastri BUT it all looks like the management behind Alonso and Piastri knew exactly what they were doing and intentionally pulled the rug from under alpine and made them look bad along with it.

Piastri should have quietly gone to alpine even after they announced him as driving for 23 and made them aware and issued a joint statement to reverse it and let everyone save face and maybe keep so sort of relationship.

Renault have been around F1 for along time and much of that time with the winning engine. Not a smart move to publicly humiliate such a company who had supported him heavily.