Coming into his first home Grand Prix and the opening race of the season, Jack Doohan just missed out on a potential Q3 at the F1 Australian GP after a badly timed yellow flag on his final flier in Q2.
The Australian driver has seen immense pressure follow him into his rookie season. With consistent rumours of a possible replacement in the form of Franco Colapinto or Paul Aron, Jack Doohan has tried to shut out the noise and focus on his own performance.
After F1 Australian GP qualifying, Doohan seemed pleased with his performance but remained slightly disappointed that he missed out on Q3 thanks to the spin of Lewis Hamilton.
“I think we were confident for Q3. Just got a bit unlucky with the yellow flag with Lewis, which brought a close to our chances of that. But all in all, it was looking very strong, even on that lap we were two tenths up before that happened.”
All weekend Doohan had been close to the pace of his teammate, settling into the Alpine. In fact, the home hero was quicker in Q1 on both runs as he outpaced the Frenchman by 0.013s.
“We switched over to a more standard place for qualifying. I felt a lot more comfortable straight away, which helped a lot.
“We were taking steep steps forward and just unfortunately got a little bit of misfortune. I’m sure it won’t be the last time, but we just look forward to maximising it for tomorrow.”
Teammate comparison
While Alpine put the pressure on Doohan and his performances, staying close or ahead of Pierre Gasly is vital in the early stages of the 2025 season. He delivered that big time in practice and qualifying.
“I think the positives were, we were slightly in front of Pierre, both runs. Not that that’s important, but it’s good confidence for myself. I think we’re in a good place for tomorrow.”
With Australia being the season-opener and the second F1 race Doohan has taken part in, slowly building up and having a clear weekend is at the forefront of his mind.
He had absolutely no problems with Lewis Hamilton’s spin, stating every driver can do it when going to the limit.
“I think we’re all pushing to the limit. We’re all humans and people make mistakes. But yeah, I was just glad that the team here at the track and back at the factory did a great job to give me a comfortable car.”
A chance of rain
A big question mark looming over the F1 Australian GP is the possibility of rain. The forecast currently predicts the race will be marred by a thunderstorm at Albert Park.
When asked if Alpine felt prepared for a rain-disrupted race. Doohan admitted that the team had done very little preparation for wet conditions as they focused on delivering a good qualifying.
“To be honest, we didn’t do anything for the rain. I think we just cranked onto the same car as the other side of the garage from FP3 to qualifying. We were experimenting to be honest.”
The opportunity of rain allows the driver to level the playing field and Doohan happily looked forward to that chance, saying that their qualifying position and current set-up “put us in a good place for the rain”.
