Ocon confident Piastri will find F1 seat ‘shortly’

Sam Cooper
Oscar Piastri alongside Esteban Ocon. Melbourne, April 2022.

Alpine reserve driver Oscar Piastri alongside Alpine driver Esteban Ocon at a fan event at the 2022 Australian Grand Prix. Melbourne, April 2022.

Esteban Ocon has predicted that highly rated prospect and Alpine team-mate Oscar Piastri will soon find a seat in Formula 1.

Having won the Formula 3 and Formula 2 World Championships in consecutive years, the 21-year-old Australian looks like one of the brightest talents to be on the precipice of the sport.

He joined the Renault Sport Academy (later rebranded to the Alpine Academy) in 2020 and is spending the 2022 season as a reserve driver for both Alpine and McLaren.

His Alpine team-mate Esteban Ocon joked that if he does get an F1 seat, his experience will make him “the best prepared driver ever.”

“Oscar is a great guy. I mean, he’s very involved in the team, he’s going to have a great testing programme,” Ocon said, as reported by motorsportweek.com.

“He’s going to be probably the best prepared driver ever, with the test programme that he’s got at Alpine.

“I’m very sure he’s going to have a seat in Formula 1 shortly. I don’t know where in the paddock, but opportunity comes for the ones who deserve it.

“And Oscar is one of them. He’s won all the major titles and he’s very professional and dedicated. So yeah, I’m sure you will see him around pretty soon.”

It is a sentiment shared by Ocon’s team-mate Fernando Alonso who said he hoped the 21-year-old will find a seat soon.

“He’s a good guy, obviously very talented, won all the junior categories until now, which obviously shows that he has the talent,” said Alonso.

“[He’s] very professional and hardworking on the simulator and on the factory, in all our meetings. He’s still very young. Hopefully he finds a seat soon.”

However, with both Ocon and Alonso looking likely to be with the team for the next few years, Alpine have conceded they may look to loan Piastri to another team in order to get him race experience.

“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,” Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi said as quoted by Motorsport.com.

“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.”

 

Alpine could find themselves in the mix

After an impressive Australia showing, Alpine could back that up again this weekend.