Alpine consider shutting academy as $11.5 million Oscar Piastri investment goes uncultivated

Alpine are looking to shut down their driver academy after their heavy investment in Oscar Piastri went to waste. 

Piastri has been one of the biggest talents in the world of motorsports over the last few years. He has been a part of the Alpine academy for four years, winning three separate World Titles during his time there.

After his dominant 2021 F2 Championship win, people saw it as only a matter of time before he landed himself an F1 seat. Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon were still with Alpine in F1, so the French team gave him the role of reserve driver. Earlier this year, Alonso announced that he will leave Alpine to join Aston Martin in 2023. As a result, the Enstone-based outfit did not waste time in announcing Piastri in their lineup for the upcoming campaign.

“So, Alonso is leaving Alpine but didn’t tell his team, to which they found out by press release, Alpine haven’t signed Piastri yet, but he’s having talks with McLaren which then could potentially mean Daniel might go back to Alpine and Oscar ends up at McLaren” pic.twitter.com/ZffcOAkmPj

— F1 Reaction Pictures (@FormulaReaction) August 2, 2022

To everyone’s surprise, however, the young Aussie denied signing for them and revealed that his future lay elsewhere. It was embarrassing for Alpine, who had invested a total of $11.5 million in Piastri’s development over the years.

His 2023 destination turned out to be McLaren. Alpine and the British team were involved in a legal battle over Piastri’s contract which ended in the former having to pay a sum of $260,000 to the Woking-based outfit.

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Alpine don’t want repeat of Oscar Piastri situation in years to come

The Alpine management was rattled after losing both Alonso and Piastri in the space of a week. The latter in particular was tough for them to swallow since they spent a lot of money to help him develop as a driver.

Every F1 team has a young drivers’ program which they train and nurture talents. Alpine, however, may be looking to shut their academy down because of what happened with Piastri. Team CEO Laurent Rossi confirmed this.

We have signed 2021 F2 champion @OscarPiastri.

Oscar joins Lando to form our exciting F1 driver line-up from 2023. 👊

Full story. ⬇️

— McLaren (@McLarenF1) September 2, 2022

“This is not good for the sport,” Rossi said. “If you decide that you’re going to save money every year, by not investing in drivers. And then you just poach them with that money you saved. It’s a different proposition.

“I’m not sure therefore I want to continue training those drivers. Or I’m gonna have to lock them in with a contract that might not be appealing to them.”

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