Oscar Piastri believes that the fact that he got released from the Alpine contract to get an opportunity to work with McLaren was a “positive” for him.
Piastri, who was Alpine’s reserve driver last year, will make his Formula 1 debut in the 2023 season with McLaren. However, the Australian’s move to the Woking-based outfit followed a dispute between McLaren and Alpine regarding his contract.
Piastri was relieved of his Alpine contract duties earlier which allowed him to participate in the Abu Dhabi post-season with the new team. The 21-year-old thinks that it benefitted him.
“It’s really, really positive for me,” he said.
“I think driving the car was the most positive thing. Obviously, you can’t substitute anything for track time, so I think having [this experience] especially was really important and a really positive thing to have.
“[It gave me the chance to be] able to work on the peripherals, and get to know my engineers better and [get to know] everyone in the team better.
“If there’s a few things that I want to change for next year, I can talk to people about that. I’m quite looking forward to being able to design some of my own little things if I want to.
“All that background stuff that doesn’t necessarily get seen, that’s all stuff I can work on in the [weeks ahead of the season].”
