The Argentine criticizes the team for not being clear about Alonso’s future after Hungary
He sees the Alpine ad as a desperate move to put pressure on
Facundo Regalia points out that Alpine has not managed Oscar Piastri’s situation well during the last two years. The Argentine driver did not understand that the French structure announced the young Australian as an official driver for 2023, when his plans for the next season were already out of Enstone.
Piastri has been one of the great protagonists of this ‘Silly Season’, especially after denying his promotion to the position of official Alpine driver for 2023. Regalia believes that the French team’s management managed the situation very badly, both by not knowing that the future of Fernando Alonso was far from the team and in turn, by announcing Piastri ‘desperately’ to put pressure on.
“I, being very involved in the paddock and having a certain relationship with Oscar’s environment, knew about McLaren. In fact, when I saw the initial Alpine announcement, I did not understand anything. I think that Piastri’s announcement was totally mismanaged and poorly launched, with a very bad ‘timing’ by Alpine”, Regalia commented in an interview on SoyMotor’s Twitch channel.
“It has been like trying to balance the situation with the announcement of Fernando Alonso at Aston Martin. With that, in some way, also putting pressure on Oscar to try to change the decision he has already made. This confirms the bad outlook and the mismanagement at the human level that there is by Otmar and Alpine, because it cannot be that they find out about Fernando’s decision through the press and, in turn, through a tweet from Oscar,” he adds.
Regalia assures that it was incomprehensible to delay Piastri’s arrival in Formula 1 a year after all the success he had achieved in lower categories. The origin of this setback has been this 2022 that he has spent as a reserve driver without racing and after Alpine has not been able to keep its word to find him a seat before July 31, Piastri already had complete freedom to negotiate on behalf of the.
“I think the Oscar theme has been around for a long time, when they did not give him in one way or another the possibility of giving him a seat in Alpine or having negotiated an agreement with another structure for Oscar to be in Formula 1. It was a lack of respect for motorsports that Oscar was not already in the Formula 1 this year grill. That’s where all this movement comes from,” he explained.
“Each driver has its own clauses and each structure has its own philosophy when it comes to managing the drivers. I think that Piastri probably had an agreement that, if he had achieved the sporting goals he achieved, Alpine had the responsibility to upload it active in Formula 1 this year. I understand that he could not be located and, from then on, certain points on the Alpine side begin to be breached, “he insisted.
Finally, Regalia understands Alpine’s plans to sign Alonso soon, because if they knew that the Asturian would leave, they hadn’t taken long to start negotiating with Piastri. However, this has not been the case, the future of the young Australian seems to be in McLaren and the Argentine feels that both parties have made a great move.
“I can understand Alpine in the fact that they trusted that Fernando was going to continue, because if they had the information that he intends to leave, there you are sitting down with Mark to confirm the Piastri-Alpine project in Formula 1. McLaren is an excellent strategic move. With the growth phase and the evolution that they have, and with a partner like Lando, it will be a very good line-up”, Regalia has expressed to close.
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