What Alonso’s Alpine exit means for the rest of the F1 driver market

Over the past couple of weeks, both Alonso and the top dogs at Alpine have expressed confidence things would be resolved quickly. Alonso said on Thursday he thought it would only take a 10-minute conversation to sort things out.

That bit was probably true. It may not have even taken 10 minutes for him to say: “Guys, I’m off.”

Make no bones about it: this is a huge, huge move in F1 silly season. The Aston Martin seat freed up by the retiring Sebastian Vettel was always going to be the key to the market, attracting a variety of names. Alonso was naturally in the mix, having spoken with Lawrence Stroll about a deal ahead of his F1 comeback with Alpine in 2021. Few could have expected things to move this quickly, though, particularly Alpine.

To lose a driver of Alonso’s experience and calibre is a huge blow for the French squad. On face value, it appears to solve the problem over what it was going to do with Oscar Piastri.

Alpine’s been stuck in a classic ‘three drivers into two seats’ conundrum that many F1 teams have faced in the past. It had Esteban Ocon on a long-term contract, Alonso performing well, and reserve driver Piastri waiting in the wings with a junior record that is the envy of anyone on the F1 grid.

Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi said in France he was confident both Alonso and Piastri would be racing in F1 next year, indicating that Alonso would stay put and that Piastri would be loaned out. Williams had been the anticipated destination for the young Australian, replacing Nicholas Latifi, but as time moved on, McLaren was also emerging as a possible landing spot in the event Daniel Ricciardo left at the end of the season.

It was made clear from the very beginning that Alpine did not want to lose Piastri. Rossi stressed it would only look to loan him out to another team, not let him go completely – something that would have happened had it failed to land him an F1 seat for 2023. Its faith in his future is total.

As much as Alpine may not have wanted to lose Alonso, to have Piastri in its back pocket would have given it some support in talks. Had Alonso gone to Alpine’s bosses and used interest from Aston Martin as leverage for a better deal, it’s unlikely there would have been the same fear of what life without Alonso would look like. Piastri would solve that problem.

Or so it would seem. The fact that talks have dragged on for…