Pressure easing off Doohan

One of the biggest talking points of the 2025 F1 season so far has been the lack of certainty around the future of Jack Doohan, but things may be about to change.

Doohan’s seat at Alpine has been under scrutiny even before his rookie season started on home soil in Australia.

Alpine signed Franco Colapinto as a reserve driver and seemingly ever since the F175 launch event the Aussie has been forced to field questions about the Argentine’s presence.

It is clear Alpine Advisor Flavio Briatore has strong interest in Colapinto who made a splash as an unexpected replacement for Logan Sargeant at Williams.

As a result Alpine Team Principal Oliver Oakes described the situation as a “lot of noise” with some hinting that it would be a matter of time before Doohan was replaced wih a contractual option to make a move as early as the Miami Grand Prix.

Unfortunately, this meant Doohan has been forced to tread a very thin tightrope across the opening races.

The Aussie did not do himself many favours by crashing on the opening lap in tricky conditions in Australia, having some smaller incidents in China and a heavy practice crash at Suzuka following a DRS mistake.

Fortunately, Briatore was not at Suzuka and Oakes was reported to have calmed the situation.

But after a solid performance at Bahrain where Doohan fought for points before finishing 14^th from his best qualifying effort of 11^th, he is set to keep the sit for the time being.

Multiple reports suggest Alpine will give him until around the middle of the season to prove his ability to keep the seat for the rest of the year.

Oakes said Doohan took a strong step forward in Bahrain.

“He has done a good job this weekend and in general,” he said.

“I know Japan FP1 caught him out a bit but I think this weekend, particularly throughout qualifying – I think the last run in Q2 he is a little bit disappointed because it was just half a tenth to Q3.

“But then in the race as well, he did a really good job in those first two stints.

“At the end there I think it was tricky and the Safety Car bunched everyone up.

“Competitiveness wise it was hard with those cars around you but he had a good weekend.”

This weekend he will take on Jeddah where he scored an F2 podium in 2023.

Image: Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images/Alpine

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