How Piastri is key to shaping AlphaTauri's approach to young drivers

AlphaTauri intends to follow a model pioneered by Oscar Piastri in earning valuable and relevant Formula 1 experience, according to CEO Peter Bayer.

Piastri won the 2021 F2 title as an Alpine junior, but with no F1 seats available for '22, was forced to sit on the sidelines, but failures in his contract pushed the Australian to sign with McLaren in July 2022, which was confirmed by the FIA's Contract Recognition Board - and exclusively revealed by RacingNews365.

Piastri first drove a contemporary McLaren in the post-season test in Abu Dhabi in 2022, but was able to complete running in older machinery to allow him to adjust to the demands of a Grand Prix car with limited official running.

This private testing helped Piastri to the best rookie season in 2023 since Lewis Hamilton in 2007 with two podiums and a Sprint win in Qatar.

AlphaTauri, now under the leadership of Bayer and new Team Principal Laurent Mekies, after Franz Tost's departure has been known as a developer of young drivers for Red Bull - but Bayer wants to direct his crop of drivers to follow the example of Piastri's testing.

Piastri's AlphaTauri lesson

"Oscar Piastri had driven I don't know how many thousands of kilometers, and when he entered [Formula 1], he knew all about it," Bayer explained to Motorsport Total.

"He knew the dynamics, he knew the functions of the steering wheel. That makes a huge difference because you're just completely ready.

"We want to use part of our income to prepare our young drivers in the best possible way, that's why we're planning a big program for Liam [Lawson], Isack [Hadjar] and maybe also for [Ayumu] Iwasa.

The team hopes to achieve this vital on-track experience for its by using the 2022 machine, which is now permitted to be used in private testing as it is not a current car.

"Franz always says that and I now agree with him one hundred percent," Bayer added of the previous boss's idea that it would take three seasons for a rookie to fully get adjusted to Grand Prix racing.

"Formula 1 is currently very complex. A driver has to digest a lot of information and feed it back to the team. All that takes time.

"I realized that when we had a young driver in the car [in Lawson], because there is a change in the flow of information.

"With an experienced driver like Daniel, it's him feeding the engineer, who is feeding the operations room, who are then again coming back with stuff.

"Once a lap, he will come back and say: 'Guys, an issue with the rear, can you have a look?' 'Oh, yeah, we see overheating, we can do something on the differential.' And it's fixed.

"With a young driver, it's coming from the ops room to the engineers to the pit-wall to the driver, it happens the other way around: from the control centre to the engineer and then to the driver."