Oscar Piastri at the 2023 Abu Dhabi for McLaren — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

Piastri makes BOLD prediction on Hamilton replacement

Several drivers on the grid are battling for their futures this season

Tyler Rowlinson

Monday 26 February 2024 01:57

Oscar Piastri has predicted that Fernando Alonso will move to Mercedes at the end of the season to fill Lewis Hamilton's soon-to-be-vacant seat.

Hamilton will start 2025 driving for Ferrari after a stunning swap was announced at the start of this month, leaving a void at Mercedes.

One of the main talking points from the shock transfer is who will replace Hamilton for 2025, with several names being mentioned in the running for the vacant seat.

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And Piastri, who has his future tied down with McLaren until 2026, has given a strong prediction that Alonso will be called up from the silver arrows.

Fernando Alonso has been linked with a move to Mercedes

Oscar Piastri has predicted the Spaniard to replace Lewis Hamilton

Piastri makes strong Mercedes prediction

Speaking in an interview with Lawrence Barretto on Sky Sports, the F1 pundit asked Piastri and team-mate Lando Norris for their bold prediction ahead of the new season.

The Spaniard has been linked with a move to the Brackley-based team and is out of contract at the end of the season, but is looking to see where Aston Martin stand this year before making a decision.

McLaren taken 'step forward' following testing

Piastri took to the track in the morning sessions on Wednesday and Thursday in Bahrain, completing 57 laps on day one and 35 laps on day two.

The 22-year-old was over two seconds behind the pacesetters on both days - Max Verstappen on Wednesday and Carlos Sainz on Thursday – but he insists that the team have taken a ‘step forward.’

Speaking in the driver press conference following testing about whether the team had improved weaknesses such as handling and low speed corners, he said: “I think certain aspects of that we've improved.

“I think we still have work to do on some things, but certainly some aspects of the low speed handling and just the handling in general, I think we have made a step forward on.

The Aussie ran in the morning sessions in Bahrain on day one and two

“I think as Andrea [Stella] has kind of said in the lead up, we've not been able to tackle everything In the time that we've had in the offseason, so there's still a lot of hard work going on to fully make the car a bit nicer to drive.

“So yeah, I mean, it's quite familiar from last year, as you would expect to think, all these cars across the grid are very dominated by the regulations.

“So I think nobody's car is going to be feeling wildly different to one another, so I think any differences are going to be pretty small, especially if you're in the same team from year to year.

“So some improvements, but definitely still some areas where I want to make some decent steps forward.”

Lewis Hamilton Mercedes McLaren Oscar Piastri Fernando Alonso