Oscar Piastri is all set to sign a contract with McLaren in a rather anticipated move taking place of Daniel Ricciardo.
After Alonso left Alpine, Oscar Piastri was all set to replace the leaving 41-year-old. However, things took a turn for worse.
Alpine went from having to fit three drivers in 2023 to have left with only one!
Piastri rejected Alpine straight out publicly. That was brutal, to say the least, and to add salt to the wounds, moved to their rival midfield team, McLaren!
Ever since Piastri tweeted, it was speculated that the driver would be moving to McLaren as it seemed the only team worthy enough to deny the seat of Alpine.
Although, McLaren and Alpine seem evenly matched on the basis of the current season.
Daniel Ricciardo dilemma
Its certain that Piastri will replace Ricciardo at McLaren.
However, Ricciardo has a contract until the end of the 2023 season which only he can terminate. This means that McLaren can’t remove the Aussie without his ‘consent’.
However, the conditions are not in favor of the 32-year-old. It’s almost certain that Ricciardo will leave the seat under pressure to find a new F1 seat.
What McLaren has done is signed Piastri a reserve deal for 2023.
This means Ricciardo will be stranded after the 2023 season. To avoid this, the Australian will probably leave his seat prior to the end date of the contract. This will allow McLaren to let Piastri take the seat in 2023.
Although Alpine still claims that it has legal standing to keep Piastri, it seems they have missed a trick and lost the driver they invested significantly on.
If you look at Ricciardo, he still has many options to go for. Reports claim the 8-time race winner was contacted by 4 teams in the last 2 weeks.
Alpine is also one of the teams Ricciardo could move to.
Only an official announcement is left to confirm the deal. The summer break has already served us with some thrilling ‘silly’ season’ impishness.
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