Jack Doohan is set to compete in his first full-season in F1 in 2025, after signing a contract with Alpine in August last year, but the Australian, who got a promotion earlier than expected at the 2024 season finale in Abu Dhabi after Esteban Ocon was released early, is already under enormous pressure from Flavio Briatore before a wheel has even been turned for pre-season testing following the signing of Franco Colapinto.
That pressure has been on even before his debut in Abu Dhabi, as rumours at that time already linked Williams super-sub Franco Colapinto to a possible Alpine deal for a race seat ahead of 2025. And whilst that didn’t happen, the Argentinian has now been confirmed as a test and reserve driver for the Enstone-based squad, signing a multi-year deal with the team.
On the face of it, Colapinto has just swapped teams, moving from test and reserve driver at Williams, to the same role but dressed in Alpine blue and pink colours. But there’s more to it than meets the eye.
Colapinto’s signing puts Doohan in precarious situation
First off, we can look at the contract length, which is usually a telling clue about how much confidence and belief a team has in a driver. Doohan, who’s been a loyal Alpine driver since his early days in Formula 2, and developed and nurtured his skills within the young driver programme of the French squad, was only given a contract for the 2025 season initially – with it being unknown whether there are performance related clauses that can activate a second year.
Colapinto, on the other hand, is on a “multi-year” deal with the squad, which presumably means a 2+1 contract, and is way more assured, to say the least, within the current Alpine management higher-ups.
Briatore’s stark emotion-less warning
With the ever-changing nature of Alpine management in the last couple of years, it’s easy to forget that Doohan was signed as a reserve driver in early 2023, when Otmar Szafnauer was still the team principal. The current F1 management structure which involves Oliver Oakes (de-facto team principal) and Flavio Briatore (Executive Advisor) has somewhat ‘inherited’ Doohan, and that perhaps indicates he’s not the preferred candidate, especially for Briatore, who’s been openly admitting that he won’t hesitate to make changes in Alpine’s driver line-up if the performance is not up to required standards.
“We’ll start the year with Pierre and Jack, I can guarantee you that. After that, we’ll see how the season progresses,” he said. “I have to put the team in a position to deliver results. And the driver is the one who has to complete the work of nearly 1,000 people behind him.
“Everyone works for just two people. If a driver isn’t performing, isn’t bringing me results, I’ll replace them. You can’t be emotional in F1.”
Praise for Colapinto
The Italian, who previously worked for the team twice, in its Benetton and Renault guises, is not that keen on having Doohan in the car, and his remarks on the press release about Colapinto’s signing are a clear indication of just how highly he rates the 21-year-old Argentine:
“We are very pleased to come to an agreement with Williams Racing to sign Franco Colapinto. Clearly, Franco is among the best young talents in motorsport right now,” said Briatore.
“It is fair to say his appearance on the Formula One grid last year caught many, me included, by surprise, and his performances have been very impressive for a rookie driver.
“We have an eye on our future, and his signing means we have a great pool of young drivers to call upon and work with in developing the team for future success.”
Intriguing remarks from James Vowles
But whilst there is that pressure already from within, the conditions in which the deal with Williams was reached means there is a great possibility of Colapinto being required for a race seat this season, which James Vowles confirmed with an intriguing quote in his statement thanking the young Argentine for his services:
“Over nine memorable races with Williams he clearly showed he is deserving of a place in Formula 1 and we always said we would support him to get one.
“Williams has one of the most formidable driver line-ups on the grid for 2025 and beyond in Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz, so we believe this agreement with Alpine represents Franco’s best chance of securing a race seat in 2025 or 2026,” said Vowles.
Vowles’ remarks fuelled the fire that it seems inevitable that Colapinto will get the drive at some point, sooner or later. It is understood that Doohan’s contract will allow him the first six races of the 2025 season to prove his worth, otherwise he’ll be shown the door.
Sacrificing opportunities elsewhere for the F1 dream
Doohan has always openly admitted how his sole focus was to get a full-time race seat in F1, and revealed in early 2024 that he even rejected other opportunities to grow his racing portfolio – including IndyCar and WEC Hypercars – to keep focused in his dream job.
And yet, despite all of that commitment and loyalty to the team, it seems he’s not going to get a proper chance at the pinnacle of motorsport to showcase what he’s really capable of over the course of an entire season.
But unfortunately patience is not really a trait Formula 1 teams tend to have towards underperforming drivers, especially in the last few years which have seen rookies come in with barely any testing or preparation and do the job – ask Colapinto himself, or Oliver Bearman’s supreme Haas cameos in 2024 – so the standard for rookies is arguably higher than ever.
An unconvincing debut
And the first F1 race for Doohan didn’t do him any good in terms of convincing Briatore he is the best option for that second seat alongside veteran Pierre Gasly. He qualified P20 and last in Q1, just under six-tenths slower than the Frenchman – who went on to qualify sixth – and finished a distant 15th, a very long behind Gasly, and only ahead of Kevin Magnussen and Liam Lawson, who had several problems with clashes and loose wheel-nuts, respectively.
Therefore it is completely understandable that there are some serious question marks being raised about the Australian’s ultimate potential. Whilst a single race cannot be the true proof of talent, Colapinto himself showed just what is possible with a points-scoring performance in just his second F1 race around the tight and unforgiving streets of Baku, in a car he had barely driven previously aside from the Monza weekend and an FP1 run in Silverstone.
Doohan, on the other hand, has had extensive Testing of Previous Car (TPC) runnings over the last few years, and should know Alpine’s car inside out for a seamless transition into F1 – but that didn’t look the case in Abu Dhabi, as he seemed (way) off the pace throughout a crucial weekend, as the team was trying to secure sixth in the constructors’ championship.
Opinion: No need to delay the inevitable
Alpine now has a solid, proven pair of hands waiting in the wings should Doohan crack under pressure – but that decision must really be taken before testing starts in late February.
Why waste three crucial days of running with a driver that you simply don’t have enough faith in and are (almost) inevitably going to drop?
If the non-emotional approach of Briatore is to be in full effect, they need to reach an agreement with Doohan as soon as possible and get the Argentine in the car in time for pre-season testing, in order to maximise potential ahead of what could be a very competitive F1 season before the big regulation changes in 2026.
The 78-year-old has history in being ruthless when it comes to his drivers, with notable examples being dropping Jenson Button from Renault in 2002 and ceasing relations with Nelson Piquet Jr in mid-2009, just months after asking him to purposely crash into a wall to help Fernando Alonso’s race. At the time, Piquet called Briatore an “executioner”.
So if that trend continues, I would suspect his mind is already made his mind up about Doohan — but he should put it in practice right now instead of wasting F1 races in an ‘evaluation’ that already has a decided, inevitable outcome.
