Alpine announced last week that F2 championship leader Piastri will become his full-time reserve driver for next season after academician Guanyu Zhou finished last on the grid.
Piastri – who leads Zhou at the top of the F2 standings with 36 points – had been linked to the Alfa Romeo seat but stated that he had no face-to-face meetings with the team.
“To be honest, I don’t know if my management did that,” said Piastri.
“Personally, I haven’t spoken to anyone at Alfa.
“I knew from the start that it was a very underdog opportunity so I was never really confident that it would happen.”
Zhou will be promoted to F1 after three years in Formula 2 and will join Valtteri Botta’s teammate as part of an entirely new line-up at Alfa Romeo.
Piastri expects a year without a racing program after ruling out a return to the F2 after his rookie campaign. Alpine has planned an “extensive” testing program for the Australian, which is expected to occur in a few FP1 sessions by 2022.
Piastri was integrated into the Alpine F1 setup in Qatar last weekend
Photo by: Alpine F1 Team
Piastri said that although he would have liked to have been in Formula 1, he was happy to stay with the Alpine family.
“Realistically, like I said, it would always be complicated to solve,” said Piastri.
“Even if it had happened, I don’t know how good or how easy it would have been to sort it out. Alpine has of course done me a lot over the past two years and has contributed a lot to my racing sport, and I wanted to stay true to them.
“If the Alfa seat had been a more realistic chance, who knows if the connections could have stayed or not? It would have been difficult to try and sort it out in the first place.
“Of course I would have liked to have been on the starting grid, but I’m certainly not disappointed with the result.”
Zhou’s move to Alfa Romeo leaves Piastri a senior member of the Alpine Academy, which he recognizes as positive news for his future F1 prospects.
“I think in a big team like Alpine, which is of course also a manufacturer, I would like to hope that the financial side wasn’t such a big factor,” said Piastri.
“So I don’t know what role that would have played in the future. But I think it’s nice, in a way, to take Zhou out of the picture a bit. “
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