Triple champion Piastri may not race in 2022 after missing out on F1 'circus ride'

It just all seems so wrong. And for once over the last few days, I’m not talking about anything to do with Sunday’s race in Abu Dhabi.

Well, Sunday’s Formula 2 feature race, perhaps. Because Oscar Piastri won that from pole position to sign-off in style after an outstanding rookie season that delivered his third championship in a row:

2019 – Formula Renault Eurocup

2020 – FIA Formula 3

2021 – FIA Formula 2

Against quality opposition, the last title is surely the best, and over the past 12 months as his momentum has built, Piastri has marked himself out as one of the finest talents to come through the F2 system.

And yet, as he talks after testing a 2021 Alpine for the first time in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, I ask him if he knows the next time he’ll be climbing into a racing car?

“Err… Next year!”

“Do you have anything confirmed?”

“Not at the moment, no. Hopefully not too long.”

The reigning Formula 2 champion, the best junior talent outside of Formula 1 right now – on results certainly, but on performances, improvement rate and potential too – has no confirmed plans to drive a racing car again as it stands. Seriously, how ridiculous is that?

Alpine will give Piastri a testing schedule and it seems some FP1 outings, so it’s not like he may never drive a car again. But his racing career is on this massive upward trajectory, one that is rising so quickly that it now is forced to stop completely.

“I highly doubt [I’ll race anything next year]. I mean, I wouldn’t 100% rule it out but if I did race next year I think it would maybe be a one-off appearance or maybe a couple of appearances. I very highly doubt that it would be a full season appearance.”

“I’ve quite literally run out of categories to prove myself in”

I can’t quite get my head around it. The circumstances play a huge role, with the more experienced Guanyu Zhou selected by Alfa Romeo as a blend of potential and significant funding, and Alpine only able to offer a reserve role having already locked Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso – a race winner and double world champion no less – into 2022 seats long before Piastri took the F2 season by the scruff of the neck. But the fact he is not going to be racing at all next year almost feels like he’s being punished for his success.

And even if Piastri doesn’t feel like he’s being punished, fans are. They should be seeing an exciting talent out racing in some way, shape, or form, because he has been winning everything he has competed in over the past three years.

I do a lot of writing for an American website, and while sometimes the US way of doing things doesn’t seem compatible with how European racing works, there’s no sane way of explaining Piastri’s predicament to them. His situation is bizarre, because the junior ladder rewards excellence and results (not withstanding financial clout) all the way up to F2. And then when the final step to F1 is required, that ladder ends.

It’s at this point you clearly have to jump off from the top of the ladder onto the circus ride, and it’s all about timing. If the circus ride isn’t near enough at the time, you just have to wait for it to come round again, if it ever does before somebody else pushes you from the top of the ladder.

But when a talent like Piastri sweeps all before him, there needs to be somewhere else he can go. A little like the anger over the ongoing controversy from Sunday, it feels like Piastri’s career is being stalled through no fault of his own.

It’s no exaggeration to say that he won’t be the commodity he is right now in a year, regardless of the fact he is likely to do nothing himself to harm his reputation. That’s just because time softens these things if there is no way of maintaining the sentiment. Think back to your reaction watching the final lap of the F1 season unfold. Whatever your emotions, I bet they’re a lot less extreme now even if you still hold the same view.