Australia’s Oscar Piastri could find himself making his Formula 1 race debut in totally unexpected circumstances in 2022, according to his manager Mark Webber.
Piastri, who won last year’s F2 title, is without a race drive for this season, instead being named as Alpine’s reserve driver. That means he’s first in line should either Fernando Alonso or Esteban Ocon be forced to miss a race.
The 20-year-old’s chances of a debut increased further last week, with the announcement that Alpine had agreed that McLaren could also call upon Piastri, in the event Daniel Ricciardo or Lando Norris is unavailable.
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Ricciardo tested positive to COVID-19 late last week, and his availability for this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix is yet to be confirmed, although the team said at the time they expected he would be fit to race.
Regardless of Ricciardo’s fitness, Piastri will likely have had a seat fitting this week with McLaren to ensure he’s ready to go at short notice.
“Being ready, both mentally and physically, is the most important thing for Oscar,” Webber told Wide World of Sports during a recent trip to Australia.
“Anything could happen, and it could happen quickly.
“Anything can pop up, it will be a random scenario that we least expect, that’s why he has to be ready.
“Oscar won’t care where it is, he’d be absolutely stoked to be there.”
Piastri joined current F1 stars George Russell and Charles Leclerc as the only drivers to win the F3 and F2 championships as a rookie, yet still found himself without a race seat for 2022.
Instead, the huge financial backing enjoyed by Chinese driver Guanyu Zhou, who finished a distant third behind Piastri last season, meant he picked up the drive at Alfa Romeo, where he’ll be the only rookie on the 2022 F1 grid.
Piastri’s boss at Prema Racing, the team that took him to the F3 and F2 titles, Rene Rosin, told Wide World of Sports in November that the Australian was disadvantaged by the schedule in 2021, which saw the second half of the F2 season run after most F1 drives had already been sorted for this year.
“There’s a bit of truth in that, I think Rene is pretty accurate,” Webber confirmed.
“The F2 calendar went really deep into the year, Oscar had a lot of trophies in the cabinet late in the season but the F1 market moves from May-July.
“The calendar last year wasn’t really favourable for Oscar unfortunately.”
What’s been noticeable in recent weeks is the prominence afforded to Piastri by the Alpine team, a level of exposure rarely given to a third driver, particularly when the other two drivers are F1 race winners, and in Alonso’s case a double world champion.
He featured heavily in the 2022 season launch, while one social media post had Piastri pictured front and centre, flanked on either side by Alonso and Ocon, as though the Australian rookie was the team’s star driver.
Webber was integral in negotiating the reserve driver deal between Piastri and Alpine, and says everything he saw during those discussions confirmed that the team is keen to promote the Australian into a race seat in 2023.
“Absolutely. That’s all the indications we have. They’re very, very excited to have him in their camp, they don’t want to see him go,” Webber enthused.
“Of course, there’s also very, very interested parties from other teams as well, which is flattering, but obviously he’s now under contract to Alpine and they’re lucky to have him.
“He’s done the work. He’s ticked every box they’ve asked him to tick, more than every box is ticked, he’s invented other boxes to tick! So that’s great. Now it’s up to them now to to make sure that they deliver on getting him into F1.”
Piastri has already tested Alpine’s F1 cars on a number of occasions, although he’s yet to drive the 2022 car, with Alonso and Ocon sharing the duties during pre-season testing.
His F1 outings have reportedly impressed the team, and Webber believes that’s what sets Piastri apart from other young drivers.
“For him to have that opportunity, and to not get overawed by it, there has been a lot of guys that have been phenomenal in junior categories, they arrive in F1 and it’s all a bit too much for them,” he explained.
“Their brains start coming out of their ears, but that’s not going to happen with Oscar.
“I think the team already can see how mature he is, how relaxed he is.”
Whether Alpine has a seat available for 2023 is not yet clear. Ocon has another two years to run on his contract, and while Alonso’s deal is up at the end of this year, the two-time world champion, who turns 41 in July, is showing no signs of wanting to make way for a younger driver.
“It’s a long year, let’s so how it goes,” Webber said.
“There’s a lot to play out through the first part of the season. It would be a nice problem to have for Alpine. But you can look at it a different way, in that Fernando might be interested in going to another team.
“There’s nothing to suggest he’s going to stay at Alpine for the rest of his career. He may have other offers.
“The market will be very open for 2023 and that’s great for Oscar.”
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