Offering Oscar Piastri to McLaren was just a sign of ‘goodwill’ from Alpine’s side, according to Sky Sports pundit Ted Kravitz.
After McLaren announced a positive Covid test for Daniel Ricciardo, questions arose as to who will replace him if he can’t return on time. The Aussie was feeling unwell for the first two days of testing in Bahrain on the final day, the Surrey based outfit confirmed his positive report.
A few hours after McLaren’s announcement, Alpine made one of their own, which surprised many. The French team offered them the option of having Oscar Piastri as their replacement driver for the Bahrain GP.
It’s not yet clear whether Ricciardo will be able to return to the grid on time. McLaren too haven’t announced who they’ll replace the honey-badger with.
Get well soon, @DanielRicciardo. 🧡
Over to you for now, @LandoNorris. 🤝 pic.twitter.com/jtC51apZ2I
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) March 11, 2022
A lot of people were elated at the fact that Piastri may get his big break. However, Kravitz isn’t very impressed by the gesture. The Brit feels that it was more of a ‘goodwill’ gesture, than something meaningful.
“It looks like it was a bit of a sort of fishing trip by Alpine,” he said. “Oscar had made the trip out early to test. He was there, he was watching everything that was going on. It was good to show him Alpine want to try to get him into a seat as soon as possible.”
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Oscar Piastri should have been offered an F1 seat much earlier
Piastri is set to spend the 2022 season as Alpine’s reserve driver. This was disappointing for a lot of people as the young Aussie is coming on the back of three back to back Championship winning campaigns in the junior series’.
Kravitz, like many others feels that the 20-year old should have been given an F1 seat earlier. He questions the 2021 F2-Champion’s future in the sport, particularly because of the team he’s a part of.
In the spirit of offering maximum racing opportunities to our stable of young talent, we have agreed that @McLarenF1 may call upon BWT Alpine F1 Team Reserve Driver @OscarPiastri in the event one of their drivers is unable to race. pic.twitter.com/etmryT1UrJ
— BWT Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) March 12, 2022
“The only problem is of course it doesn’t look like Fernando Alonso is retiring anytime soon,” Kravitz continued.
“It’s weird, isn’t it, because potentially McLaren with a Piastri in there could end up taking quite a lot of points off of an Alpine were they in direct competition, such is Oscar’s skill, even though it would be his first grand prix.”
“It was a bit odd. You would have thought there would’ve been a joint statement from McLaren and Alpine,” the 47-year old added.
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