Jack Doohan reportedly had a “big difference in terms of lap time” compared to Pierre Gasly during pre-season testing, according to Kimi Raikkonen’s former engineer Julien Simon-Chautemps.
Doohan is gearing up for his first season in Formula 1 with Alpine, but he’s doing so under a cloud as there’s speculation that his days as an Alpine driver are already numbered.
Will Jack Doohan see out the F1 2025 season with Alpine?
Last year Alpine announced Doohan would replace the Haas-bound Esteban Ocon as Pierre Gasly’s F1 2025 team-mate.
The announcement was made on August 23rd, and exactly seven days later, Franco Colapinto climbed into the Williams F1 car as he replaced Logan Sargeant and caught the attention of the paddock, including Alpine executive director Flavio Briatore.
Briatore was spotted by PlanetF1.com in talks with Colapinto and his manager at the Qatar Grand Prix and a short while later confirmed to Auto Motor und Sport that if “there was an opportunity to get Colapinto, you have to think about it”.
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He thought, and then he did, Briatore signing the Argentinean driver as one of Alpine’s reserve drivers for the upcoming season.
But while Alpine said reserve, Formula 1’s rumour mill went into high gear as it speculated that Colapinto was more than just a reserve; he was the driver who could replace Doohan.
Briatore did nothing to quash that when he told Le Parisien: “We’ll start the year with Pierre and Jack, I can guarantee that. After that, we’ll see as the season progresses.
“If there’s a driver who isn’t making progress, who isn’t bringing me results, I change him. You can’t be emotional in F1.”
It has since been claimed that Doohan has five races to prove himself, although former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher believes it could even be Australia or bust.
“If the boy doesn’t perform, he probably wasn’t really strong in the test either, [but] from what I’ve heard, it will pass pretty quickly,” he told the Backstage Boxengasse podcast.
“Flavio knows it himself, it could be over after Australia. He doesn’t have much of a future now.”
Doohan will also have to contest that first race of the season with Colapinto looking over his shoulder as Alpine have confirmed to PlanetF1.com that the former Williams driver is their preferred reserve driver for round one.
The pressure is stacking up on Doohan’s rookie shoulders and Sky F1‘s Karun Chandhok says it is not a good situation for him to have to deal with.
“It’s quite harsh on Jack to just have Franco sit on the bench throwing bananas around, hoping that he slips and falls over or just sitting there and hoping Jack does a bad job,” said the former F1 driver.
“That’s pretty bad vibes to be having in your pit garage.”
Even more worrying for the Australian rookie is the claim by Raikkonen’s former Alfa Romeo engineer Julien Simon-Chautemps that Doohan’s times during pre-season testing were lacking.
“We confirmed that Pierre Gasly is clearly ahead of Doohan, especially now,” he told The Race. “I mean there is quite a big difference in terms of lap time. So that was what we learned.”
But as the Formula 1 circus heads to Melbourne, Sky’s David Croft has told Alpine to stand up for their driver and give him their full support rather than let the rumours rumble on.
“I’m going to stand up for Doohan,” he said. “I thought he was unlucky in Abu Dhabi. In the first runs in qualifying he was a tenth off Pierre Gasly, and there’s no disgrace in that.
“He then got sent out into traffic, his tyres cooled, lost grip. He started lower than he was going to. The instruction was to bring the car home and keep it safe.
“What looked like a poor drive was just doing as the team asked.
“Flavio Briatore or Ollie Oakes need to come out and say ‘Doohan is our man for the year’. If they do that, the speculation stops.”
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