PROBLÈME À DEUX: Is Jack Doohan’s Seat Already at Risk?
Jack Doohan is no stranger to the Alpine family, with him recently being signed to their F1 team and even being able to make his official F1 debut at Abu Dhabi. With the full-time seat secure and having maintained excellent relations with the team, it seems that the future is bright for the young Australian—or is it?
Doohan, who joined the Alpine academy in 2022, will be entering the 2025 season alongside the long-time F1 driver Pierre Gasly. It comes as no surprise that Gasly will be the clear number one driver for Alpine, and Doohan will be expected to perform as close as possible to him, assisting the Enstone-based team in scoring valuable points to power them through the midfield in the Constructors’ standings.
Recently, news broke that Alpine has signed former Williams and Formula 2 driver Franco Colapinto to their junior program and more importantly, as their F1 reserve driver. Colapinto has showed a strong showing in the previous 2024 season with Williams, scoring five points in nine races consisting of a tenth place finish in Austin and his career best of eighth in Azerbaijan. and even occasionally outperforming experienced teammate Alex Albon.
Having jumped straight into the middle of the F1 season following Williams’s announcement that the Argentinian would replace the mid-season departure of Logan Sargeant, Colapinto has shown that he can deliver promising results, albeit needing more experience to minimize mistakes resulting in costly incidents.
The signing of the young Argentinian have raised rumors and speculation about the team’s real motive behind the decision, with many asking if Alpine is already getting prepared to replace Doohan with Colapinto should his performance in the opening races be sub-par. Mid-season changes are nothing new to the sport, with Colapinto and Doohan themselves both being able to make their official debut due to mid-season driver changes in their respective teams.
As opposed to Colapinto’s nine, Doohan only has one F1 race under his belt in which he finished 15th. Although this may seem like a decent result for a debuting driver, it is important to note that there were four DNFs in total during the race, meaning that his net finish was only ahead of Kevin Magnussen, putting him second to last in the running drivers’ results.
Following his vice-champion season in F3 in 2021, Doohan graduated to F2 and debuted with six races remaining of the season. In the six races, Doohan managed to rack up enough points to finish 19th overall in the final standings by the end of the season. The next year in 2022 and his final season in F2, Doohan races his first and only full season in F2, finishing sixth in the final standings.
Colapinto, who is yet to complete a full F2 season due to joining with two races remaining in his debut year in 2023 and being called in to F1 for Williams Racing in the midst of the 2024 season, finished fourth in the 2023 F3 final standings and graduated to F2, finishing an unsurprising 25th in the 2023 F2 final standings as he had only competed in two races after joining mid-season.
Alpine finished P6 in the final constructors’ standings in 2024, spent most of the season in the midfield battling Haas and Racing Bulls throughout the season. For the upcoming season with a new Mercedes power unit, they are looking to push through to the front of the midfield and begin to challenge teams like Aston Martin and Mercedes, and maybe even the top three teams by the end of the season.
Many have stated that Alpine have taken a gamble to sign Doohan to the team, while others argue that he had been in the junior Formulas for long enough and was now ready for a seat in the big leagues. With Colapinto’s signing, it appears that Alpine themselves have acknowledged that signing Doohan was a risky move with the Argentinian reserve driver almost being a warning to Doohan that he may be replaced should he not perform to expectations.