Alpine rules out climbing Piastri at Silverstone, but warns: "We plan to put him in the car

Oscar Piastri is one of the most highly tipped names to make his Formula 1 debut in 2023, and Alpine has already warned that it will promote the debut of its pupil behind the wheel of the A522 soon. Although it has ruled out giving the Australian the opportunity to take part in free practice already at Silverstone, the next round of the calendar, the British magazine Autosport stated that the Enstone base will field Piastri for the weekend in France, two races later.

By regulation, teams are required to promote rookie drivers in two free practice sessions throughout the season, replacing the main ones. Otmar Szafnauer has therefore confirmed that Piastri will be in the team's starting line-up "soon.

"We can say that it won't be at Silverstone," said the Alpine boss when asked about the matter, as the French team prepares updates for the British GP and will prioritize its current duo, Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon.

As the next round, in Austria, is one of the races that will have a sprint race this year - that is, with one less free practice session - everything indicates that it will be at home that Alpine will have the reigning F2 champion aboard the A522: "The answer is that we plan to put him in the car. It won't be long, but we haven't announced [when that will be] yet," he said.

Piastri has already participated in some private testing with Alpine with last year's car, the most recent being held in Qatar and at Silverstone, and according to Szanfauer, "is doing very well." "Oscar is a brilliant young talent, as everyone knows."

The Australian's announcement in F1 seems a matter of time, but there is still an elusiveness as to which team the youngster should defend in 2023. This is because Williams is also an option. In this case, Piastri would be loaned to the base in Grove to run in place of Nicholas Latifi, and the replacement could happen later this year, for the rest of the season.

"We have a contract with Oscar and we have some options on him," Szafnauer confirmed. "So there is no real need to rush, and when the time is right, when the time is right, we will take a look around and make that kind of decision," he added.

So far, after nine races, only two teams have put rookies out to walk in free practice, all in Barcelona: Williams, with Nicky de Vries, and Red Bull, which had Jüri Vips behind the wheel before suspending him from its Driver Academy for racist comments.