What If McLaren Chose Palou Over Piastri?

Piastri remains part of Alpine’s 2023 line-up

One of the most immediate effects that this situation had was on Alpine. 

The team announced Piastri would be joining their line-up as a replacement for Fernando Alonso, whose contract with Alpine was until the end of 2022. This announcement itself was filled with controversy (most notably, Piastri’s tweet about who he would–or would not–be driving for), however none of that might have come to pass if Piastri had nowhere else to go and stayed with the team.

Gasly stays with AlphaTauri

Had Piastri stayed with Alpine, Pierre Gasly likely would not have left AlphaTauri (now VCARB) for the French outfit. Gasly still had a guaranteed seat with the Red Bull sister team for 2023, which would have meant an entire extra year for him in AlphaTauri colors, driving (and joking around) alongside Yuki Tsunoda.

Yet when the opportunity opened up, Gasly took it. Alpine paid a fee to have him released from his AlphaTauri contract early, and the rest is history.

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Nyck de Vries’s F1 debut plays out differently

With Gasly gone, AlphaTauri had to think fast about who to replace him with. They went with young talent Nyck de Vries, who had plenty of experience as a test and reverse driver for McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin, and even made an appearance for Williams at the 2022 Italian Grand Prix, filling in when Alex Albon was out with appendicitis. 

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Daniel Ricciardo stays focused on fans and sponsors

This is a big one. 

Unfortunately, de Vries’ dream quickly soured. The Dutch driver didn’t live up to the standards set out for him and AlphaTauri opted to replace him half-way through the 2023 season. To take over his seat, they brought none other than Daniel Ricciardo back on the grid in a move that was met with much joy from the F1 community.

So would we ever have seen Ricciardo back in an F1 car had things at McLaren unfolded differently? Or would he have remained a third driver for Red Bull, relegated to doing promotional activities and watching from the sidelines?

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Liam Lawson looks for other ways to prove his worth

Bringing in Ricciardo was not the only lineup change AlphaTauri faced that year. Ricciardo had an unfortunate crash during a practice session at the Dutch Grand Prix, in which he broke his hand. Unable to drive, he was briefly replaced by Liam Lawson. Lawson’s performances as a reserve driver over the next five races certainly contributed to his return to the team in 2024, when he once again took over for Ricciardo from the Singapore Grand Prix on, this time on a permanent basis.

Without that initial opportunity in 2023, Lawson would have had to find other ways to show he is ready for F1, be it through another season in Super Formula, F2, or something else. 

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Red Bull sorts its lineup issues and possibly retains Christian Horner

The Red Bull family has always been particularly cutthroat when it comes to their driver lineups, but it was the sudden dropping of Ricciardo and Sergio Perez in 2024 and subsequent handling of Lawson’s seat at the beginning of 2025 that really brought to light the instability in this regard.

This caused a constant spotlight on the teams and their drivers that likely didn’t make things any easier within a Red Bull organization already feeling the pressure of McLaren’s surge in performance alongside their own decline. While the exact reason is unknown, it is plausible that the additional turmoil contributed to the sacking of Christian Horner.

And with that in mind, would Gasly have provided some much-needed consistency to help the organization stay a bit more grounded if the McLaren lineup looked a little different back in 2023? Would we ever have seen the likes of de Vries and Lawson debut in F1, or Ricciardo make a heroic return only to be booted back out again? And most intriguingly, would Horner still be the Red Bull team principal today if all of this had played out in any other way?

And as for Palou himself, he might never have gotten his third or fourth IndyCar titles had he moved on to F1, beginning the question, who would have gotten those wins instead? Would it have been Colton Herta , and Pato O’Ward, who were runners up in 2024 and 2025, respectively? And how would their careers be affected by that?

No one knows for sure, but one thing is certain… Palou may never have made it to F1 full-time, but his decision was just the first flutter of wings in a butterfly effect that rippled through the Formula 1 paddock, and the motorsport community at large.