F1 F2 news | Jack Doohan fighting for Alpine seat against Daniel Ricciardo Oscar Piastri Pierre Gasly
His successes over the past few years – as well as his high-profile spat with Alpine – has meant Oscar Piastri has more or less become a household name in the Australian sport landscape.
While Piastri no doubt deserves the spotlight, it’s meant the achievements of another up-and-comer, himself the son of a world champion, have largely gone under the radar.
But when Jack Doohan, the son of five time 500cc – now MotoGP – motorcycle world champion Mick Doohan, won Sunday evening’s (AEST) Formula 2 feature race on the undercard to the Belgian Grand Prix, he stamped himself as a potential future F1 star.
READ MORE: Maligned $1 million NRL star to pay dearly for ‘shocker’
READ MORE: Legend’s vicious Broncos truth as ‘failure’ looms
READ MORE: ‘Idiot’ Hamilton slammed by F1 rival in crash
The win was young Jack’s third of the year, having won the sprint races at the British and Hungarian grands prix earlier this year.
Spa is a track the 19-year-old clearly enjoys. He won both races there during his F3 campaign last year.
This win has elevated him to fourth in the championship, and into outside contention for a seat on the F1 grid next year.
“I’m stoked! Finally my first feature race win and for it to all come together like that this weekend, obviously not perfect, but P2 in the sprint from P7 and P1 today from P4 is the most I could’ve asked for,” he said after the race.
“I’m really happy. Now just eyes forward on the next two rounds and the remainder of the season.”
Like Piastri, Doohan is signed to the Alpine Driver Academy. While Daniel Ricciardo, Piastri, and current AlphaTauri star Pierre Gasly are considered the three main favourites to land the seat next to Esteban Ocon for next season, it wouldn’t be out of the realms of possibility that Doohan gets the seat.
Gasly has already re-signed with Red Bull’s feeder team for next season, although there’s talk among the paddock that Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer is keen to get him in the seat to complete an all-French line-up for the partly state-run French manufacturer. But his exit would have to be highly favourable to Red Bull and would no doubt relieve Alpine of a few million Euros.
It’s also considered likely the Contract Recognition Board will rule in McLaren’s favour when it meets late Monday (AEST) to discuss Oscar Piastri’s dual contracts, and if Daniel Ricciardo chooses to leave F1 or sign with another team, Alpine would be back to square one.
Hello, Jack Doohan.
Having spent six years racing karts – winning two Australian Championships in 2015 and 2016, and a third at the European titles in 2017 – Doohan made the jump to car racing for 2018.
In his debut season in British Formula 4, Doohan won three races and finished fifth in the series. He graduated to the FIA Formula 3 series racing on the F1 undercard for the 2020 season.
In weaker machinery, Doohan didn’t make the points at all through his debut season, finishing 26th.
But a move to the ultra-competitive Trident team for 2021 yielded four wins and two poles, before he was given a go in F2 machinery with MP Motorsport for the last two meetings of last year. He finished fifth in just his second race in Jeddah.
He signed with the Alpine Junior Academy for the start of 2022, and moved to the Virtuosi Racing squad for a full-time F2 campaign. From 22 races this season, Doohan has scored 15 top-tens and nine top-fives to go with his three wins.
He has missed the top-five just three times in the 10 races since the start of July, including a second place in Saturday’s sprint race.
He also took part in a secret F1 test with Alpine at Monza ahead of the British Grand Prix in July.
In this weekend’s feature race, Doohan made a blistering start from P4, moving up to P2 by the first corner.
He stalked championship leader Felipe Drugovich for the rest of the first stint, before pitting at the end of lap nine.
Drugovich pitted a lap later, but such was the power of the undercut that Doohan blew past him on pit exit. Despite a couple of close calls as the pair fought through traffic, Doohan was never headed.
Asked after his win if he would go and seek out Szafnauer to plead his case for the F1 race seat alongside Ocon next year, Doohan said he would let his driving do the talking.
“I think results speak louder than anything else,” he told Speedcafe.
“So I’ll continue to put in the hard work and focus on my campaign and try and do the best I can. In the end, that’s all we can do as drivers.”
Realistically, Doohan is a rank outsider to get the Alpine seat – after all it is still his first full-time season in the cars. It’s far more likely he’ll spend another season in F2, where if he performs strongly he might make his way onto the grid for 2024.
The F2 season continues this weekend on the Dutch coast at Zandvoort, before the triple header concludes the week after at Monza, and then a 10-week break before the last round of the year at Abu Dhabi.
For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!
Incredible escapes: The worst crashes in motorsport history
