Otmar Szafnauer criticizes Alpine F1 for mishandling the Piastri contract, claiming he was scapegoated for the team’s failures.
In 2022, Alpine F1 attempted to push through the recruitment of Oscar Piastri, despite him having already signed with McLaren. Otmar Szafnauer, who was the team principal at the time, wasn’t involved in the handling of this matter, but he recalls:
“After his F2 career ended, Alpine had an option on Oscar Piastri as a Formula 1 driver, but that contract was never executed,” Szafnauer explained on the High Performance podcast. “The contract was never signed.”
“I started in March. I had no idea. They didn’t properly submit the documents to the Contract Recognition Board (CRB) and never signed the contract. In November, there was a two-week window where it could have been done, but it wasn’t.”
“So, firstly, this had nothing to do with me. I wasn’t even there. But secondly, the communications department, which didn’t report to me, thought it was a good idea to deflect attention from the incompetence of those at Alpine at the time by putting my photo on the press release.”
Among the communications team was a former Force India employee who issued the release: “She said, ‘I’m sorry, I was told to do this.’ But it showed at the time that some people within the Alpine organization weren’t trustworthy and were trying to undermine me, so they weren’t working with me.”
Szafnauer believes Alpine could have won a legal battle against Piastri because he benefited from services provided by the team that were never utilized in a race car. However, the failure to sign the contract rendered that moot.
“Even though they didn’t sign the contract on time, we delivered everything in it to Oscar, and it wasn’t insignificant—it involved driving 5,000 kilometers in a two-year-old car, which costs a lot of money—and that’s what we did. We absolutely did everything outlined in that unsigned contract.”
“In English law, had we taken the case to an English court, we might have won. You know, it’s unjust enrichment. You didn’t sign the contract, but you took all of this and didn’t deliver what you were supposed to provide.”
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Szafnauer: Alpine F1’s Blunder – Piastri Case Fallout Szafnauer: Alpine F1’s Blunder – Piastri Case Fallout
