It caused ripples then. It would trigger a sporting earthquake now. It was the dispute over the services of a promising young Australian driver, who three years on is increasingly favourite to finish the season as Formula One world champion.
This was the fight for Oscar Piastri – a battle that went legal and, in the words of the victor Zak Brown, caught a rival team boss with his pants down.
It also ended up with Piastri in the fastest car on the current grid and saved him from toiling at Renault-backed Alpine, who this week lost team principal Oliver Oakes. His resignation, citing personal reasons, is another twist in a long and troublesome tale of underachievement.
A further twist, yes, but not even the latest. Confirmation of that came the next morning when rookie Jack Doohan, another Australian, was replaced after six races this season, and one last, by Argentine Franco Colapinto.
Italian boulevardier Flavio Briatore has assumed total charge, having added to his brief as ‘executive adviser’ by taking on Oakes’ vacated responsibilities.
Are Alpine a bullet dodged by Piastri? It looks like it. Certainly, a sliding doors moment for him.
Three years on from the legal tussle over who he would be driving for in 2023, Oscar Piastri is flourishing at McLaren and leading the Drivers’ Championship after six Grand Prixs
The Australian starlet claimed his fourth Grand Prix of the season and sits atop the standings
McLaren chief executive Zak Brown was behind beating rivals Alpine to his driver’s signature
McLaren chief executive Brown is a happy man as he speaks to Mail Sport after touching down in Los Angeles on Wednesday. An air-travel junkie, Brown watched Piastri win in Miami on Sunday, his fourth win from six races and his third in a row, flew back to the factory in Woking, Surrey, and then journeyed across the Pond again for a conference on the Pacific Coast.
Three years ago, working to the same adrenaline-fuelled schedule, Brown was quietly pursuing Piastri – a native of Melbourne, who went to school at Haileybury in Hertfordshire to pursue his motor-racing career in England. Piastri was a rising talent, a reputation capped by winning Formula Two in his rookie season. He was one of six drivers to have accomplished the feat. World champions Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton headline that elite clutch.
Two major developments on the driver market impacted Piastri in 2022. McLaren were running out of patience with his compatriot Daniel Ricciardo, and searching for a possible replacement. And Sebastian Vettel announced he would be retiring, opening up a seat at Aston Martin.
Fernando Alonso duly replaced Vettel. That shocked Alpine, the Spaniard’s then team, and left them with a sudden hole. They wanted Piastri to step up. He was their reserve driver. Under an agreement reached with McLaren, he was also their reserve driver, and they simultaneously eyed Piastri to take over Ricciardo’s place.
‘We were very transparent with Daniel,’ Brown told me from LA on Wednesday night. ‘We loosely gave him until Monaco to prove himself. It didn’t work out and Oscar came high in our thoughts.
‘Not only was he our reserve driver but we had a relationship with Mark Webber, who was managing him then as he does now. Oscar had pedigree – he was winning in junior formulas in his first year.
‘At the same time Lando (Norris) was killing it for us, so blooding another new, young driver was a “risk” we could afford to take. Daniel, by the way, was thought not to be a risk but how did that turn out, unfortunately, for whatever reason?
‘So the stars aligned. We signed Oscar in stages. Being our reserve driver he was already familiar with us.’
A seat became free at both of the teams following the movements of Daniel Riccardo (left) and Fernando Alonso (right)
Then-team principal Otmar Szafnauer was keen to bring reserve driver Piastri into the fold
But despite wearing Alpine’s colours, Piastri was unwilling to have a deal announced by the team on his behalf
We now cut to Alpine, then under team principal Otmar Szafnauer, like Brown, an American. They are not the best of friends, to put it mildly.
Szafnauer was rocked by Alonso’s abrupt departure. Next day, Alpine issued a press release announcing their star prodigy as Alonso’s replacement. ‘After four years as part of the Renault and Alpine family, reserve driver Oscar Piastri is promoted to a race seat alongside Esteban Ocon starting from 2023,’ they declared confidently.
Just one snag. Nobody had told Piastri.
He took to social media to debunk the statement, saying: ‘I understand that, without my agreement, Alpine F1 have put out a press release late this afternoon that I am driving for them next year. This is wrong and I have not signed a contract with Alpine for 2023. I will not be driving for Alpine next year.’
Soon, McLaren and Alpine – and Brown and Szafnauer – were in a rancorous courtroom battle for the services of the then 21-year-old. Both teams claimed they, and they alone had a legitimate contract, in place for Piastri for 2023.
The FIA’s little used Contract Recognition Board (CRB) was convened – a four-man panel headed by Ian Hunter QC, an experienced arbitrator from London’s leading international chambers, Essex Court.
The CRB met on August 22, 2022. Witnesses gave evidence via Zoom. Brown recalled their legal costs amounting a few hundred thousand pounds. Reports at the time estimated Alpine paid about £500,000 to their lawyers.
Four days later, the verdict came in. The FIA said the CRB had ‘issued a unanimous decision that the only contract to be recognised is between McLaren Racing Limited and Mr Piastri dated July 4, 2022 (the day after the British Grand Prix).’
Instead, Brown was able to create a stable featuring two of the most talented young drivers
Piastri has had a blistering 2025 so far, winning in China, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Miami
The ruling added that: ‘Mr Piastri is entitled to drive for McLaren for the 2023 and 2024 seasons.’
Szafnauer has stated that he felt he had been stitched up by forces at Alpine seeking to undermine him and that oversights before his arrival lay behind Piastri’s wriggle room to leave.
Brown is not convinced by Szafnauer’s reasoning. ‘He got caught with his pants down,’ says Brown. ‘He claims that when he arrived Oscar was not tied down in the way he should have been and that it had nothing to do with him.
‘But when you come in you have to assess everything and fix it. Maybe he should have taken a look.
‘Their press release saying Oscar would get the race seat in 2023 did not even contain a quote from him. They did not even ask him. They put the statement out as if it was a done deal. It was used to bully him into doing what they wanted.
‘The CRB ordered them to pay our expenses, so that tells you what they made of the situation.’
Rows aside, Brown’s enduring delight is to have Piastri alongside Norris – two fine drivers. Separated by 16 points at the top of the table, last season they took McLaren to their first constructors’ title since 1998.
‘He was excellent right away,’ remembers Brown of Piastri. ‘It was clear he was going to be awesome. And everything we asked him to work on for this year he has done. He is going from strength to strength. He’s totally chilled.’
Lando Norris sits 16 points behind his younger team-mate after missing out on the title last year
But Brown has stressed there is total respect between his two drivers – and that they will be allowed to fight for the championship on the track
But what about the prospect of Piastri and Norris coming to blows on the track if the championship continues to be contested primarily between the two protagonists in the papaya cars?
‘There’s total respect between them,’ adds Brown. ‘At some stage they might tangle. You would expect that if they were racing each other hard side-by-side for 24 races. But I am not worried about it.
‘We won’t have team orders or a No1 driver unless, say, with five races to go one of them is mathematically out of the game. I don’t think that will happen. I’d hope they will instead be fighting for the title between themselves to the end.
‘It’s up to them to decide who wins it.’