"He has chopped off the hand that fed him"- Alpine CEO takes dig at Oscar Piastri's behavior towards the team

Oscar Piastri will be seen driving for McLaren in his F1 debut in 2023. The 21-year-old has been a part of Alpine's junior academy since 2020 and was expected to replace Fernando Alonso next season. However, Alpine lost Piastri in a contractual battle against McLaren despite claims and the announcement that Piastri had agreed to continue with Alpine.

Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi, in an interview with Auto Motor und Sport, took a dig at Piastri. He said the driver should have been grateful for Alpine showing commitment towards him and that there is no excuse for his behavior:

“He grew up in this team. He knows everyone in our team. We’ve shown our commitment to him. Shouldn’t he be a bit grateful for that? Oscar would do well to be fast and deliver results next year. But even if he becomes the new Michael Schumacher, this story will stick with him forever.”

“There is no excuse for Oscar’s behaviour. He has chopped off the hand that fed him and toyed with us because any draft contracts were not submitted on time. If he says he didn’t feel the full affection from us, I wonder why we offered him all the opportunities to become as complete a Formula 1 driver as possible."

Rossi strongly believes Piastri's exit will always stick with him in a bad light no matter how much success he garners. Clearly, there is bad blood between the parties. Hopefully, they will resolve their differences some time soon once they've settled into their new respective realities.

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Alpine need to move on from Oscar Piastri

Things like this happen in F1 and it's high time Alpine moved on from this drama. Oscar Piastri didn't act unlawfully and the rising young star had all the right to look for a team that best fit him. If he didn't fulfill Alpine's expectations, they would have done the same thing - that's how it works in F1.

There was a loophole in the Australian's contract and McLaren swooped in for the opportunity and won the contractual battle. Alpine are taking every opportunity now to bitter mouth Oscar Piastri while he has kept quiet and McLaren haven't said much either.

According to Alpine's Laurent Rossi, this story will stick with Oscar Piastri no matter how successful he becomes. However, his statement likely only speaks to his degree of indifference towards the future McLaren driver.