Doohan “not completely happy” after practice in Bahrain

Kicking off his Bahrain weekend with a “solid” and composed start, Jack Doohan got down to business as Alpine quietly chipped away at performance gains through a mixed pair of Friday sessions.

Aiming to tick off the first goal on his Bahrain to-do list by having a clean start to the weekend, Doohan armed himself with the hard compound tyre to start FP1.

Setting personal best after personal best, the Australian was quick to make gains during the opening stint of FP1, securing a time of 1:36.417s which placed Doohan within the top ten, however, at a significant deficit to Pierre Gasly.

Returning to the pitlane, both Alpine drivers made the switch to the soft compound tyre, with Gasly instantly lighting the timing sheets as he skyrocketed into the top three, extending the intra-team interval to nine-tenths.

Focusing on his own session, the #7 settled into P7 after a short-lived performance simulation, rounding out the first of three practice sessions with a fastest time of 1:34.396s.

“It’s been a solid day’s Practice in Bahrain,” Doohan said. 

“We struggled a little bit in Free Practice 1 and I still was not completely happy in Free Practice 2. 

“The field is so close, two-tenths of a second splits a number of cars, so every detail will count for a lot, especially in a tight fight for Q3. 

“We will keep our heads down and keep working hard to find some improvements from today. 

“There will be plenty of useful data for us to run through from this evening’s session both on low and high fuel and across all three compounds.”

In Free Practice 2, Doohan banked himself a mid-range lap time on the medium compound tyre, sitting just over a second behind the fastest driver after the first haul of attempts.

Despite improving on his next lap with the assistance of fresh C3 tyres, the interval between Doohan and the latest benchmark grew, however, a more accurate measure of the #7’s progress had him two-tenths quicker than his teammate. 

Doohan returned to the pitlane before rejoining the session with 15 minutes remaining, however, there wasn’t much movement on the timing sheets from the Australian.

The French outfit didn’t show much pace in the more representative FP2 conditions, ending the session with Doohan in P14 and Pierre Gasly in P17.

“Tomorrow, Free Practice 3 will be hot like we had in the first session today,” he said. 

“It will be all about refining some details, understanding the tyres and maximising what we have when it counts.”

Free Practice 3 will kick off at 22:30 AEST, followed by Qualifying at 02:00 AEST.

Image: Steven Tee/LAT Images

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