{"id":277101,"date":"2023-03-10T02:26:45","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T03:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=277101"},"modified":"2023-03-11T01:01:33","modified_gmt":"2023-03-11T01:01:33","slug":"team-boss-leaves-door-open-for-shock-piastri-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=277101","title":{"rendered":"Team boss leaves door open for shock Piastri return"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alpine<\/a> boss Laurent Rossi has left the door open for Oscar Piastri<\/a> to one day return to the team, saying he holds no grudge against the Formula 1<\/a> rookie.<\/p>\n

Piastri's well-documented contract saga<\/a> ultimately ended with the young Australian signing with McLaren<\/a> instead of the team he had long been tied to through its junior academy.<\/p>\n

Holes in the 21-year-old's deal with Alpine meant he was never officially signed to graduate to Formula 1 with the team in 2023.<\/p>\n

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What followed was a bitter tit-for-tat exchange between Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnaer and McLaren CEO Zak Brown with Piastri stuck in the middle.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Now, half a year on from the ordeal, Alpine's CEO says it's water under the bridge.<\/p>\n

Appearing on the official Formula 1 podcast, Beyond the Grid, Rossi said he's taking a wait-and-see approach.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the team is happy with its two French drivers, Esteban Ocon<\/a> and Pierre Gasly<\/a>, both of whom are contracted through to the end of 2024.<\/p>\n

"We'll see when we get there," he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"If down the road the opportunity arises, I'm not saying no, I'm not saying yes. We'll see.<\/p>\n

"There's no need to hold a grudge. I think it's destroying you and destroying the things you want to do. So, you know, that's gone.<\/p>\n

"We're better off with Pierre now, so why would I want anything else? I'm fine with that."<\/p>\n

\"Alpine<\/p>\n

In the shemozzle, Szafnaeur was particularly terse in his assessment of Piastri, who he said he "expected more loyalty from" given their relationship.<\/p>\n

Piastri joined the Alpine academy in 2020 and won the FIA Formula 3 Championship that year before taking out the FIA Formula 2 Championship a year later.<\/p>\n

Coming into the 2023 Formula 1 season, he was arguably the most well-prepared driver in the modern era given the sheer number of testing laps completed with Alpine.<\/p>\n

While Szafnaeur wished Piastri had graduated with Alpine, Rossi said he "wouldn't call drivers disloyal" but had hoped the situation might have been approached differently.<\/p>\n

"Now, there are probably ways to do it," said Rossi.<\/p>\n

\"Oscar<\/p>\n

"I would have not necessarily prevented Oscar from leaving should he have come to us with something a bit more structured that says, 'Hey guys, I'm also having this offer. What do we do? Can we talk?'<\/p>\n

"It just caught us by surprise, and I guess it caught also (Daniel) Ricciardo by surprise, which says a lot, right?<\/p>\n

"That might be a little bit candid and we don't want to be candid anymore. That's why we put that into the contract. It's okay.<\/p>\n

"You know, it's okay. It's over now. We learnt the lessons for ourselves. The rest \u2014 it's just one person. I actually wish him well, and that's about it."<\/p>\n

Piastri suffered a DNF in his first Formula 1 race, the Bahrain Grand Prix. Teammate Lando Norris was the last of those to finish the race in 17th.<\/p>\n

While McLaren languished, Gasly claimed two points in the season-opener with his ninth place finish.<\/p>\n

His offsider Ocon suffered a nightmare race, copping three penalties and an eventual DNF.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alpine boss Laurent Rossi has left the door open for Oscar Piastri to one day return to the team, saying he holds no grudge against […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277101"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=277101"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277103,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277101\/revisions\/277103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=277101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=277101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=277101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}