Considered one of motorsport’s most storied surnames will make its mark on Formulation 1 subsequent season: one which achieved outstanding success on two wheels within the Nineties, and one which now needs to bask in related fortunes on 4.
Jack Doohan has been rewarded for his service as Alpine’s reserve driver, incomes his elevation to a full-time race seat alongside Pierre Gasly. The son of five-time 500cc grand prix motorcycling world champion Mick, Doohan the Youthful will search to copy these triumphs within the battleground of F1, having eschewed following his father’s footsteps in a profession racing bikes.
Doohan advised Motorsport.com again in 2022 {that a} leg break on a motorbike as a baby relatively corralled him away from a life on two wheels, conceding that the strain of the household title within the motorcycling enviornment would have reached its zenith. And certain, whereas Mick drove an F1 automotive in 1998, a Winfield-liveried model of the 1997 Williams FW19, the Doohan title has little pores and skin within the sport on 4 wheels. A brand new Doohan legacy will be created, then, so long as Jack can carry out in F1.
Mick Doohan, Williams FW19 Renault
Photograph by: Gavin Lawrence / Motorsport Photos
Of some amusement to the F1 fanbase was that Alpine had lastly snared an Australian hotshot from its junior set-up, after its spectacular fumble of Oscar Piastri within the tail-end of 2022. There might even be three Australians on the grid ought to Daniel Ricciardo stick round for 2025, essentially the most in a single race since Alan Jones, Larry Perkins and Warwick Brown all raced within the 1976 US Grand Prix.
Angling for a profession in automobiles, Doohan turned an Australian karting champion, after which moved to the UK to race within the British F4 championship in 2018, having turn out to be a part of Pink Bull’s junior programme. After lacking out on fourth within the championship to fellow Pink Bull stablemate Dennis Hauger – the Norwegian additionally getting his first expertise of the solid of British circuits on the invoice – Doohan nonetheless beat Hauger to the Rookie Cup.
The next yr, Doohan linked up with present Alpine workforce principal Oliver Oakes to race for Hitech within the Asian F3 championship, claiming the runner-up spot within the standings to Ukyo Sasahara, dovetailing that with a yr in Euroformula Open – though ends in the F3-grade sequence had been much less spectacular.
Jack Doohan, HWA Racelab
Photograph by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Photos
A step as much as the FIA Formulation 3 championship in 2020 with HWA was unsuccessful, yielding zero factors in a attempting season; within the 30-car grids with little expertise of the format, Doohan usually turned misplaced throughout the labyrinthine environs of the midfield and was unable to interrupt into the highest 10 even as soon as. And, though Pink Bull’s help didn’t visually lengthen past his crash helmet – a red-white-blue evocation of his father’s Australian flag-inspired lid – it helped Doohan break into a much more aggressive entity with Trident.
With Maurizio Salvadori’s squad, Doohan excelled in his second yr of F3. A season-long championship battle in opposition to former sparring accomplice Hauger began to construct as much as a remaining crescendo in Sochi, the place Doohan helped his probabilities with pole for the Sunday full-points characteristic race. Within the opening dash, nevertheless, he slid down the order from his reversed-grid beginning berth of twelfth, and his lack of ability to interrupt into the factors – whereas Hauger completed second – ensured that he missed out on conserving the title battle alive. This was compounded by the cancellation of the second dash as a result of heavy rain, though Doohan transformed his pole within the season finale – and confirmed a ruthless streak by defying workforce orders to let team-mate Clement Novalak by way of. Regardless, his win helped Trident safe the groups’ title.
Jack Doohan, Trident
Photograph by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Photos
Sensing that alternatives with Pink Bull might need reached their restrict, Doohan extricated himself from Helmut Marko’s watchful gaze and joined the Alpine Academy for 2022. Though Alpine’s monitor file with juniors had maybe been much less heralded in comparison with Pink Bull, Doohan had simply Piastri forward of him within the pecking order along with his off-track actions, and linked up with the Virtuosi Formulation 2 squad that had completed second within the earlier yr’s championship.
There, he took three wins en path to sixth in that yr’s championship; though he’d deliberate to do only one full season in F1’s junior class (having achieved six races on the tail-end of 2021 with MP) he caught round for a second with the intent of constructing a championship problem.
Though Doohan had rallied within the center interval of 2022, a gradual begin to the yr ensured that he solely picked up six factors within the opening six races, and a disappointing finish yielded three retirements within the remaining three characteristic races of the yr; he was dumped right into a spin at Zandvoort by Clement Novalak throughout a badly managed security automotive restart, suffered an electronics challenge within the Monza characteristic’s formation lap whereas set to begin from pole, after which appeared set to make an alternate technique work within the Yas Marina finale earlier than his wheel got here off moments after his pitstop. That is greater than anybody’s fair proportion of misfortune.
Jack Doohan, Virtuosi Racing
Photograph by: Formulation Motorsport Ltd
Downside was, 2023 did not begin significantly auspiciously both. A “basic challenge” along with his automotive meant that Doohan couldn’t collect a foothold into that yr’s championship battle, and he was solely thirteenth within the factors after the Monaco spherical. Though outcomes picked up over the second half of the yr to grease his path into third general within the standings, the title duel between Theo Pourchaire and Frederik Vesti was already out of attain.
However it’s Doohan, not Pourchaire or Vesti, who earns the step as much as F1. The Alpine reserve function has granted the Queenslander an opportunity to impress the workforce with FP1 outings and testing of outdated automobiles, basically the programme that Piastri had used as a springboard for his personal F1 profession. Doohan had first skilled up to date F1 equipment in Mexico 2022’s FP1 session, fulfilling the identical duties in Abu Dhabi forward of an extended run within the end-of-season younger driver take a look at. He participated in the identical apply classes a yr later, peaking with thirteenth within the Yas Marina FP1 session (albeit one populated by a handful of ‘rookie’ drivers).
This yr, Doohan has already assumed FP1 duties in Canada and at Silverstone, though working within the former was nixed by poor climate pervading the Montreal circuit. Nonetheless, there will likely be additional probabilities for Alpine to organize Doohan over the remainder of the season to make sure he has the most effective likelihood in 2025 to ship; over 2024, he has had 10 days booked in to run with older equipment: someday in Alpine’s A521 from 2021, and the A522 raced within the 2022 season within the following 9. He’d additionally been thought of for a task with Alpine’s World Endurance Championship workforce, however went no additional than speculative discussions as he was unable to focus absolutely on his F1 help function.
Jack Doohan, Alpine A524
Photograph by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Photos
Though Carlos Sainz could have been Alpine’s first alternative for 2025, the announcement of the Spaniard’s transfer to Williams for subsequent season pressured the French workforce to look elsewhere. It had been identified that it was assessing Doohan for a step up and had additionally put its WEC driver – and Mercedes reserve – Mick Schumacher by way of his paces. Each names are saturated in star high quality, however Doohan’s work over the previous two years has proven the workforce that he has what it takes to make the transfer into F1.
In Gasly, the Australian has a widely known benchmark. The Frenchman is a grand prix winner, and is a driver who is understood to be a quick and astute racer. Gasly additionally is aware of learn how to work with a rookie team-mate, having served as Yuki Tsunoda’s mentor at AlphaTauri when the Japanese driver joined the ranks as a Pink Bull fledgling. Regardless, Doohan will take time to hit the bottom working with a yr out of racing, a much less felicitous circumstance that Piastri skilled in 2023 after a full yr spent in a reserve function.
Oakes and Flavio Briatore will count on Doohan to carry out, but additionally recognise of their careers dealing with youthful drivers that they’ll require time to mature. And, with the workforce in a present state of flux, Doohan could possibly profit from a low-risk surroundings to chop his tooth within the high-pressure environment of Formulation 1.
