Oscar Piastri shocked the paddock by signing for McLaren rather than Alpine ahead of the 2023 season. But what if he had signed for Alpine?
Not only would this decision have had catastrophic consequences for Piastri’s early career results – it would also have changed the outcome of the 2025 championship battle, and perhaps even the 2024 battle as well.
2023 season
With Piastri signing for Alpine, he would be teaming up with Esteban Ocon. Fernando Alonso would still leave for Aston Martin.
But how would the McLaren lineup look? Lando Norris would still be there, obviously. Daniel Ricciardo had a contract for 2023 that was annulled due to the arrival of Piastri.
In this scenario, we expect that McLaren would have kept Ricciardo for one last season as there were few better options. Potentially, they could have gone with Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly or Mick Schumacher, but those options all seemed underwhelming at the time. Bringing in Alex Palou or Pato O’Ward from IndyCar were also options, but in the end not very realistic.
Final lineups:
Alpine: Ocon – Piastri
McLaren: Norris – Ricciardo
Regarding the results, Alpine had a solid midfield car in 2023. They finished sixth in the real life constructors championship with two podiums along the way.
Piastri’s own driver performance might have been better at Alpine than it was at McLaren since he would have been better prepared – the Australian had already tested extensively for Alpine and knew the staff already. He undoubtedly would have been competitive. Ocon had an okay year and generally looked faster than team mate Gasly, although Gasly ultimately ended up with four more points.
In this alternative 2023 season, we expect Piastri to perform roughly at the same level as the experienced Ocon, ending up with 60 points and a podium along the way.
McLaren started out slow but improved massively with their upgrades in July. Norris would likely have performed the same, but with slightly more points as Ricciardo would not have finished ahead of him in Qatar or in the Japanese sprint. For this reason, Norris actually jumps to fourth in the standings. Ricciardo finishes 9th, just like Piastri did, but with roughly 20 fewer points to his name.
Reputation-wise, Norris is now even more respected for ‘carrying’ McLaren, while Piastri’s rookie season seems better as he matched Ocon in performance and even beat him in points.
Real-life standings:
1. Verstappen (Red Bull)
2. Pérez (Red Bull)
3. Hamilton (Mercedes)
6. Norris (McLaren)
9. Piastri (McLaren)
11. Gasly (Alpine)
12. Ocon (Alpine)
Alternate standings:
1. Verstappen (Red Bull)
2. Pérez (Red Bull)
3. Hamilton (Mercedes)
4. Norris (McLaren)
9. Ricciardo (McLaren)
11. Piastri (Alpine)
12. Ocon (Alpine)
2024 season
Alpine would have continued with Piastri and Ocon. A fairly strong lineup, especially with Piastri set to improve in his second season.
Obviously, McLaren would not have renewed Ricciardo’s contract for 2024. In terms of drivers, their options would have been to bring in a solid midfielder like Gasly (who would have dominated Tsunoda yet another year at Alpha Tour), Albon (who performed brilliantly at Williams yet again) or Hülkenberg (who just had a strong comeback at Haas).
But more interestingly, it’s not out of the question that they could have signed Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton was already negotiating for his 2025 Ferrari contract in the middle of 2023. But if he saw his old team McLaren improving rapidly, and with a clear availability already in 2024, could he have gone back to his childhood team instead? We believe this option would have been very attractive to Hamilton. It would be a unique career path to come back to his first team, even if it meant never driving for Ferrari.
The butterfly effect continues though, as Mercedes would need to find a replacement for Hamilton a year earlier than in reality. Antonelli would be way too young. Alonso would not have been an option; Sainz neither as Ferrari would have given him a long contract with Hamilton out of the picture. Toto Wolff would have three options: Promote test driver Mick Schumacher, bring back Valtteri Bottas, or go for the best possible option which was Alex Albon. With Albon going to Mercedes, a spot would also open up for Schumacher at Williams. Franco Colapinto would still replace the underperforming Logan Sargeant by midseason.
Final lineups:
Alpine: Piastri – Ocon
McLaren: Norris – Hamilton
Mercedes: Russell – Albon
Williams: Schumacher – Sargeant/Colapinto
A lot of things would change in this season.
Alpine had a terrible car in the beginning of the year. When the car finally improved, Ocon was not getting the most of it. In this low-pressure environment, Piastri likely would have been Ocon quite clearly, even more than Gasly did in real life (42 to 23 points). Piastri would also have started negotiating with other teams for a 2025 drive, but more on that later…
The biggest change would happen at the front of the field. With McLaren suddenly emerging as a top team, who actually had the fastest car in the second half of the season, Hamilton would now be a potential title contender. In real life, he had a down year in 2024 and lost to Russell, but if he could smell the possibility of winning more often, he may have performed better. Him and Norris could team up against Verstappen and make the title battle closer than it really was. Verstappen would not have secured the title until Qatar, and Hamilton likely would have scored close to the same number of points that Norris scored.
As for Mercedes, Russell would have performed similarly, but Albon would have performed very well, and the world would have been surprised at the Brit-Thai’s ability (as it happened actually in 2025 against Sainz).
Colapinto would have beaten Mick Schumacher quite clearly at Williams and secured a permanent seat with the team.
Real-life standings:
1. Verstappen (Red Bull)
2. Norris (McLaren)
3. Leclerc (Ferrari)
4. Piastri (McLaren)
6. Russell (Mercedes)
7. Hamilton (Mercedes)
10. Gasly (Alpine)
14. Ocon (Alpine)
16. Albon (Williams)
Alternate standings:
1. Verstappen (Red Bull)
2. Norris (McLaren)
3. Hamilton (McLaren)
6. Russell (Mercedes)
7. Albon (Mercedes)
10. Piastri (Alpine)
14. Ocon (Alpine)
2025 season
With Alpine going down, Piastri’s manager Mark Webber would have begun searching for better options by early 2024.
Ferrari would have been a good option, if not for the Scuderia extending Carlos Sainz long term, as they never got Hamilton in this scenario.
Red Bull, however, were looking for a driver. They ended up going with Liam Lawson (later replaced by Yuki Tsunoda) for 2025. But they definitely would have been interested in Piastri, a young star who had beaten Ocon twice, and with the contract agreed already in mid 2024, a move to Red Bull would not have seemed as suicidal as it began to seem in 2025 by the failures of their second drivers in real life.
McLaren would happily keep Norris and Hamilton; Mercedes ditto with Russell and Albon, and due to the disappointment of Mick Schumacher at Williams, a seat would open up for Antonelli there.
Alpine would only now bring in Pierre Gasly, two seasons later than it actually happened in the real world. Jack Doohan would join him there, this time not demoted after just a few races since Colapinto is already set elsewhere.
Final lineups:
Red Bull: Verstappen – Piastri
McLaren: Norris – Hamilton
Mercedes: Russell – Albon
Williams: Colapinto – Antonelli
Alpine: Gasly – Doohan
Since the 2025 is actually in progress, we don’t have any final results yet, and that also makes it harder to guess on the alternate results. But we will give it a try.
Piastri would obviously struggle next to Verstappen, but he is a driver miles better than both Lawson and Tsunoda, so he would get a lot closer to Verstappen and have a much better understanding of the Red Bull. Piastri would probably win his first race for Red Bull this year, but lose to Verstappen quite clearly in the standings – something like 225 points to Verstappen’s 350.
Meanwhile, Norris and Hamilton would fight it out for the title. It’s anybody’s guess who the winner would be. Age-wise, Norris is close to his peak, while Hamilton is well beyond it. But this hasn’t been Norris’s best season – he is struggling under pressure, so in this alternate world it would be close to 50-50.
The Russell-Albon battle at Mercedes would continue as in 2024, with Russell having a slight edge.
Antonelli’s rookie season would seem much more impressive. He would likely beat Colapinto (who just beat Schumacher the year before), rather than losing clearly to Russell as is unfolding in the real 2025 championship. Mercedes would be forced to promote him in 2026, likely at the expense of a well-performing Albon who sadly moves down to the lower midfield again.
Alternate standings:
1. Norris (McLaren)
2. Hamilton (McLaren)
3. Verstappen (Red Bull)
4. Russell (Mercedes)
6. Piastri (Red Bull)
7. Albon (Mercedes)
8. Antonelli (Williams)
Summary
Oscar Piastri would have had a slow, but lower-pressure start to his career at Alpine, likely matching Ocon in 2023 and clearly beating him in 2024. Alpine’s decline would force him to look for a better seat in 2025, most likely Red Bull where he would lose to Verstappen but perform much closer to the Dutchman han Pérez/Lawson/Tsunoda did.
Lando Norris would have been higher rated not facing the emergence of Piastri. But McLaren would have eventually signed another top driver to pair with him.
In our example, the new Norris rival at McLaren would be Lewis Hamilton, who would fight for the title in 2025, and have an entertaining comeback at McLaren where his career began.
Esteban Ocon’s reputation would be much lower (if possible) as he would lose to a young Piastri rather than an experienced Pierre Gasly. After falling out with Alpine in late 2024, he found a Haas seat in real life, but in this scenario his reputation might come in the way of a contract despite his solid driver skills.
Due to various butterfly effects, Piastri’s choice also affects Carlos Sainz (would have received a multi-year contract at Ferrari in our example), Alex Albon (a candidate for Mercedes due to Hamilton’s earlier departure) and Kimi Antonelli (likely would have entered for Williams, for practical reasons).
What do you think would have happened if Piastri had signed for Alpine?