A house Method 1 race is each blessing and curse for any driver – it doesn’t matter what PR guff they spout about discovering additional efficiency on acquainted circuits. However for Alpine driver Jack Doohan, there may be barely extra getting into Melbourne this weekend.
First up, he’s the ultimate driver in our rookie collection to technically not fulfil that standards – given his outing in final 12 months’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the place he realized he wants to change his grip on an F1 steering wheel to keep away from post-race thumb ache.
On the identical time, this implies there are lots of different issues he’s already taken in. These embrace understanding F1’s delayed/aborted begin guidelines within the wake of the penalties dished out to way more skilled racers on the 2024 Brazilian GP.
However Doohan’s compatriot Oscar Piastri has admitted “I am most likely glad Melbourne wasn’t the opener in my rookie season, as a result of that will have been fairly full on”. And, regardless of his one-race F1 expertise final 12 months, this weekend goes to be precisely that for brand spanking new Alpine racer.
He was in Brazil because the workforce’s reserve driver – a task that had him in any respect 24 races final 12 months, with Doohan working in Alpine’s sim on each Friday the place a race was lower than three hours flight away, permitting him to achieve the paddock and full his stand-by duties (and lots of media appearances early on) after serving to Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon tweak their set-ups from afar.
However Alpine was not Doohan’s first junior backer – that was Crimson Bull between 2017-2021. It was with the vitality drinks big’s junior workforce that Doohan arrived in Europe as an Australian karting champion to compete within the 2018 British Method 4 season.
Famously, he’s the son of five-time 500cc world champion Mick Doohan, however breaking his leg on a motorbike as a toddler led the youthful Doohan down the four-wheeled path.
Mick Doohan and son Jack Doohan
Photograph by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Photos
After his F4 marketing campaign (which additionally included outings within the Italian and German varieties), he then reached Method 3 after profitable races at a regional degree for such equipment in 2020. He was F3 runner-up in 2021 earlier than commencing two seasons in Method 2.
These featured solely sporadic intervals of success, however his closing marketing campaign on the high of the F1 feeder collection ladder – the place he completed third – was undermined by a cracked chassis early within the season.
In addition to performing as Alpine’s reserve driver in 2024, Doohan was given a hefty Testing of Earlier Automobiles (TPC) programme – having joined the workforce’s junior scheme when Piastri was going by way of the same strategy of F1 preparation earlier than slipping off to hitch McLaren in 2022.
Alpine checked out conserving Doohan race recent with a slot in its World Endurance Championship Hypercar workforce in 2024, however it was determined this could detract an excessive amount of from his F1 reserve duties.
In the end, it took Alpine to axe Ocon after which miss out on signing Carlos Sainz for Doohan to get his F1 break and the workforce then misplaced a race with Mercedes to get the 22-year-old his most well-liked race quantity for the 2025 marketing campaign.
He had needed to run #12, however after Mercedes acquired its paperwork lodged with the FIA for Andrea Kimi Antonelli to make use of that for his personal debut this 12 months first, Doohan settled on #7 – which he used again in 2019 and picked for its historic hyperlinks to Kimi Raikkonen one in every of his “idols”.
To even attain that time, Doohan had needed to interact Alpine WEC racer and former Haas F1 driver Mick Schumacher in a check shootout at Paul Ricard – all the time denied as being in such phrases by the workforce, though Netflix cameras had been invited.
Jack Doohan, Alpine A524
Photograph by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Photos
Doohan was then provided that shock Abu Dhabi debut as Alpine’s relationship with Ocon imploded, the place he certified final and completed fifteenth.
For all the joy of Doohan’s begin to life as a full-time F1 driver, the hurdles haven’t stopped coming. And it was Alpine, largely, that put them there.
The workforce signed short-term 2024 Williams driver Franco Colapinto to be one in every of its 4 reserve drivers and it has been instructed it even paid to safe the Argentine’s providers.
This has unleashed hypothesis that Doohan’s contract has a clause that ensures him only a restricted variety of races in 2025. Alpine workforce principal Oliver Oakes didn’t deny this within the current Bahrain pre-season check.
Doohan bit again at questions on this example at F175 Dwell in London final month, which happy Alpine’s administration.
Inevitably, the subject got here up once more within the pre-event press convention in Melbourne on Thursday, to which Doohan replied: “Nice query!
“To be trustworthy, I have never been desirous about any of that. As a result of there isn’t any level desirous about rumours or commenting on them. I’ve a contract for a minimum of this 12 months, if no more.
Jack Doohan, Alpine
Photograph by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Photos
“I stay up for many residence grands prix. And the uncertainties, you do not trouble worrying about them anyway. I’ve to carry out every time I am within the automobile, no matter if I’ve one man chasing my seat.
“We even have 4 now. Not simply Franco most likely desires in my seat, if not Pierre’s as properly. And I needed their seats whereas I used to be reserve driver the final two years. I’ll take pleasure in each race because it’s my final as a result of I wish to take pleasure in every second I am within the automobile.”
However, from the impressively savage shut down of the subject in a room filled with primarily simply the F1 press corps on the O2, Doohan’s reply this time was much more genial.
A broad grin adopted his preliminary reply as laughter echoed across the room in Melbourne.
And that is in the end his solely selection. He must take pleasure in what he can amid an ungainly state of affairs his workforce has created and hope it helps him attain his greatest efficiency degree quick.
Heaping strain on drivers is simply how workforce govt advisor Flavio Briatore operates.
Learn Additionally:
On this article
Alex Kalinauckas
Method 1
Jack Doohan
Alpine
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