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McLaren driver Oscar Piastri brought back memories of his iconic tweet by cheekily commenting on Alpine's latest Instagram post.
Back in 2022, when Piastri was still a junior driver at Alpine, the French team lost Fernando Alonso after the Spaniard decided to head to Aston Martin. They soon announced that the Australian rookie would be promoted to F1 and would race alongside Esteban Ocon from 2023.
However, Piastri shocked the entire F1 space by posting a tweet claiming that he did not agree to race for Alpine in 2023. He added that the Enstone-based team never had his consent to announce his promotion to F1.
A few months after the explosive tweet, McLaren officially announced Piastri as their new driver for 2023. He replaced Daniel Ricciardo, who briefly left the F1 grid and became Red Bull's reserve driver.
Coming back to the present, Alpine's official Instagram account posted pictures of Esteban Ocon and Oscar Piastri racing RC cars ahead of the 2024 F1 Japanese GP. Piastri left a light-hearted yet sassy comment that this time, the team had his permission to post these pictures, connecting it to his iconic tweet two years ago.
"Alpine had my permission for this post," Piastri wrote.
Oscar Piastri gauges McLaren's position in the pecking order compared to Mercedes
Oscar Piastri recently compared McLaren and Mercedes' strengths and weaknesses while talking about where his team lands in the pecking order in 2024. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda, he explained that the gap between both teams was small and that his team needed to focus on the teams ahead of them, namely Ferrari and Red Bull.
“I think it's very, very even. I think we have different strengths and weaknesses for sure and I think qualifying made the difference. I think Lewis showed that if we qualify behind them there was a good chance we were going to be stuck behind them for the whole night. So I think it's very, very tight between us. And yeah, we need to do some work to try and jump them and catch the two teams ahead,” Piastri said.
As of now, McLaren is third in the constructors' table with 55 points, while Mercedes is in fourth with 26 points.
