It was made clear from the very beginning that Alpine did not want to lose Piastri. Rossi stressed it would only look to loan him out to another team, not let him go completely - something that would have happened had it failed to land him an F1 seat for 2023. Its faith in his future is total.As much as Alpine may not have wanted to lose Alonso, to have Piastri in its back pocket would have given it some support in talks.
So long as Piastri is still in its hands, the priority for Alpine will be to get him on the grid and start to build for a long-term, post-Alonso future. An Ocon/Piastri line-up might lack the experience or star power that Alonso bears, but there’s no denying it’s an exciting prospect. Alpine will also finally achieve its goal of getting one of its juniors into a works seat, even if it’s earlier than it would have anticipated just a couple of weeks ago.