Jordan's Track Talk

Tag: Rumour Mill

  • Alpine to explore Piastri loan

    Alpine to explore Piastri loan

    Recently in the past few weeks there have been quite a few news articles about Australian, Oscar Piastri and him having an F1 seat next year. Well Alpine are considering to loan him out to another team, but they don’t want to loose him permanently.

    After winning back to back Formula 3 and 2 titles, there was no available seat for him on the 2022 F1 gird, so he is spending this season as Alpines reserve, with a heavy simulator schedule, access to engineer briefings and upcoming FP1 sessions, all with the aim of him getting on the gird for 2023.

    If Piastri was to step up to Alpine, then it would be replacing Fernando Alonso, however the Spanish driver appears to be on top form and shows no sign of him declining a seat.

    If it’s a solution that allows me to get him back at some point, I might think about it, I’m not opposed to the solution. You understand I want to develop Oscar, I don’t want to leave him sitting on the bench waiting forever. He needs to be ready when the day comes. And the day will come because he’s very talented, he’s very worthy of one of the top 20 seats here. And I do believe he has the potential of being a future World Champion, I’m persuaded of that. So he needs to be trained as much as he can in the meantime. [Looking at a loan has] always been a parameter for all of us.

    Laurent Rossi, Alpine CEO talking on a possible loan for Piastri, quoted by Motorsport.com.

    But, there is a paddock rumour going around, which was revealed by Sky F1 broadcaster, Ted Kravitz.

    One of the latest paddock rumours has Williams interested in the services of Oscar Piastri. This is for next year. I know I said [recently] you might see Oscar Piastri potentially at Aston Martin, but it seems I was wrong about that and actually Oscar Piastri/Alpine are looking at Williams potentially as a place for him next year. I don’t know if that will be in place of Alex Albon or Nicholas Latifi as both are very happy and ensconced within this team at Williams, but it’s one to look out for later in the season.

    Ted Kravitz during Ted’s Notebook for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

    Williams, have had a loan deal before, the British team had George Russell from 2019 to 2021 from Mercedes. After a blank first two season, Russell scored 16 points in his final season with the team.

    My Opinion-

    I’d pay money to see Oscar Piastri have a F1 seat for 2023! Whether that be with Alpine, Williams or a completely different team. But if Williams took a shot at Oscar, I don’t think they would be disappointed.

    He is obviously very talented, as seen by many current F1 drivers, Alpine and Mark Webber (his manager) and also the fact he has won back to back titles, which not many juniors can say they have done. Surely it’s only a matter of time? Right?…

  • Marcin Budkowski left Alpine

    Marcin Budkowski left Alpine

    Today it got announced that Executive Director, Marcin Budkowski has left Alpine which brings a three-year stint at the team to an end.

    Budkowski has been a part of Alpine since 2018 where he joined from the FIA- before that he started his F1 career in the aerodynamic department of a few teams first being Prost GP, then Ferrari from 2002 to 2007 where he saw the team win multiple championships.

    He then decided to seek a new challenge and joined McLaren in 2007 where he worked in a variety of aerodynamic roles both at factory and on track- he became head of aerodynamics in 2012, however his 7 years at McLaren ended in 2014.

    He then went on to the FIA as mentioned above, where he became F1’s technical and sporting coordinator for the FIA, he then became head of the Formula One technical department in 2017. He then joined Renault as executive technical director and in January 2021 he was made a director of Alpine.

    Alpine have said that Laurent Rossi CEO will “temporarily” run the operation “to allow everyone to focus on next season’s preparations”. Rossi took over as CEO ahead of last season and since being in the team he has been conducting a review of it, which includes the management structure.

    Rossi said: “I would like to thank Marcin Budkowski for his commitment and contribution to the team’s results over the last four years. The team is fully focused on getting the car ready for the first race in Bahrain and deliver a step beyond in performance.”

    Budkowski added: “I truly enjoyed being part of the leadership team of Renault then Alpine F1 Team, working with such a talented and dedicated group of people. I will be watching the team’s progress fondly in the seasons to come.”

    My Opinion-

    I was shocked to hear this because I felt like he didn’t do anything to not deserve the position- but that being said, I feel like Alpine has some big problems in their management area seeing as Cyril Abiteboul left on the 11th January 2021, and now Marcin in January 2022…

    Obviously the rumour mill is spinning more and more now since Marcin has now left, will we see an announcement in the next few weeks about a certain Otmar Szafnauer joining the french team? And could this be the same for Aston Martin with Marcin? It’s a wait and see game at the moment…