Piastri reveals remarkable and ‘unglamorous’ McLaren signing location

Oscar Piastri has said, in a surprising admission, that he signed his first McLaren contract in a motorway service station car park in the United Kingdom.

The 23-year-old stunned the F1 world in the summer of 2022, when he publicly called out then-employer Alpine for prematurely claiming it had elevated him to a race seat for the following season.

In a sensational move, Piastri tweeted a denial that he had signed a contract with the team and that he would be racing for it, creating a situation that was quickly dubbed the Piasco.

Little did the Enstone squad know at the time, but Piastri and manager Mark Webber had already signed a deal with McLaren to race alongside Lando Norris from 2023 and beyond, in place of compatriot Daniel Ricciardo, who had underwhelmed since arriving in Woking.

Alpine’s premature move forced Piastri’s hand, as the team was seemingly unaware that its tardiness and hesitancy in promoting its reserve driver from its junior programme was about to cost it the reigning F2 champion.

The now-McLaren driver had become the first of three F2 title winners in a row not to immediately secure a place on the F1 grid, a streak Gabriel Bortoleto broke this year.

Alpine had preferred the experience of Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon, but when the Spaniard bolted for Aston Martin just before the summer break, it triggered the series of unfortunate events for the team.

“Yeah, it was quite a complicated 12 months to get into F1,” Piastri reflected during a Gentlemen’s Journal interview.

“Signing my F1 contract was a very special thing. Even if there was some controversy around it, it was very, very special.”

Article continues below ‘Piasco’ tweet.

Alpine had been under the impression it had an option on the Australian, that it was duly going to be exercising for the season to come when it published its press release.

With both teams believing it held valid contracts for Piastri, the case was put before the F1 Contract Recognition Board [CRB], where McLaren won out.

Then-Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer explained what happened when he appeared on the High Performance Podcast.

“In November [2021], there was a two-week time window where it could have been done and it wasn’t,” the 60-year-old said of the lapsed contract clause.

“Come the CRB, where Alpine lost because the filings were incorrectly done, we put out a press release and the press release has my image on it,” he added, underlining he was not at the helm at the time.

However, it is the location at which Piastri signed his first McLaren deal that is remarkable now, with the two-time grand prix winner disclosing the unusual turn of events. 

“It was in a service station car park in the UK, so it wasn’t the most glamorous place to be signing an F1 contract,” he said. “But it was still a very, very special feeling.”

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