Doohan falls just short of points after promising Bahrain run

Jack Doohan came ever-so-close to cracking the top ten in Bahrain, delivering a composed and competitive drive that ended with a disappointing P14 finish after a late penalty undid his hard work.

Eyeing down his first points-finish in Formula 1, Doohan charged into the first braking zone from his highest grid position yet. 

Getting a front-row seat to the heated Red Bull-Ferrari battle, the Australian was in prime position to pick up any crumbs left by the squabbling drivers. 

He held onto the back of Yuki Tsunoda’s RB21, propelled by the DRS advantage as he formed the back of a four-way battle for P8.

Prioritising the undercut strategy, Alpine called its driver into the pitlane on Lap 9, with Doohan rejoining the race in P19 as an early stopper.

When his competitors followed suit, the undercut had proved to be successful as the #7 now circulated ahead of Tsunoda, aided by Red Bull’s pitstop malfunctions. 

Again, Doohan had the best seat in the house to watch Max Verstappen take on Kimi Antonelli, finding the pace on his medium tyres to soon pose a threat to the reigning World Champion.

The Australian came within seven-tenths of a struggling Verstappen before he was forced to shift into defensive gear when the fast-charging Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton consumed his mirror.

On Lap 22, Doohan couldn’t escape the inevitable tyre deficit as Hamilton made a clearcut pass into Turn 1.

Regaining ground, he found his way back into DRS range of Verstappen, however, the early stop came back to bite him as his tyres dropped off, prompting his second journey into the pitlane on Lap 28.

Rejoining in P17, Doohan was just four laps short of pitting during the Lap 32 Safety Car that was brought out to allow track marshals to clear the racing line of debris, however, it wasn’t a costly strategy call when the Alpine driver inherited his way into P9 as the race got going again.

“The result today is disappointing but I am happy that we opened our points tally with Pierre finishing in seventh place,” Doohan said.

“The Soft and Medium tyres felt strong in the race and we were up to ninth place after the first two stints on those compounds and it looked positive for us. 

“We boxed for the Hard to cover some other cars but the Safety Car was deployed at an unfortunate time, which gave some other cars the chance to change to fresher, softer tyres. 

“It was very difficult to keep them behind, we struggled with the rear a bit on that compound, and then we had a time penalty at the end for track limits.”

As the field bunched up, Doohan led a DRS train of drivers eager to clinch the final few points-scoring positions, with Tsunoda the greatest threat in his mirrors. 

Within the span of a few short laps, Doohan’s dream of scoring his maiden F1 points in Bahrain came to an end after Tsunoda, Bearman, Antonelli and Albon all got the jump on the Australian, dropping him out of the points and into P13.

More bad news struck the Australian when he was shown the black and white flag for exceeding track limits, with that later upgrading into a disappointing five-second time penalty.

Willing on the chequered flag, the last driver to pick Doohan off was Liam Lawson who also carried a time penalty, however, double that of the Alpine driver meaning it wasn’t too costly of a positional loss.

With the extra five seconds added to his allotted race time, Doohan finished the Bahrain Grand Prix in P15, however, was later promoted one position due to Nico Hulkenberg’s post-race disqualification for excessive skid block wear on his Sauber.

“We will now continue to keep on building on the progress the team has made this weekend,” Doohan said.

“We have the next race coming up in Jeddah to look forward to in a few days’ time.”

Looking to get his name on the points-scoring board after Pierre Gasly managed to break Alpine’s 2025 drought, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is just around the corner, running across April 18-20 to round out the first triple-header of the season.

Image: Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images

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