F1: Alpine director spoke again of Doohan and Colapinto

Oliver Oakes was consulted, again, by the situation of the Australian and the Argentine, who integrates the French Team Reserve Pilot Quartet.

The constant runrun that sounds around the future of Jack Doohan does not cease. Mainly, because from the internal of the French team no one went out to give a firm and definitive support; On the contrary. Flavio Briatore, executive advisor to the team, warned that he has an extensive list of reservations because if “a pilot does not work, I change it.” In the midst of all that eggplant is Franco Colapinto, who left Williams and went on to integrate the reservations that Paul Aron, Ryo Hirakawa and Kush Maini completed. The greatest support for the Australian left from Oliver Oakes, the director and who knows Mick’s son from his passage through the 2019 Asian F3 with the Hitech team, founded by Oakes.

In the midst of Baréin’s preseason, Oakes went out to cross the questions Doohan received at a press conference about whether the presence of Colapinto generated extra pressure. “I think journalists have questioned Jack quite hard about that, and it’s not fair. So I give him credit to him because he kept his head down and continued with his winter and doing his job. He received criticism and is not fair,” said Okes. Already in Melbourne, the director of Alpine was again consulted on the situation by Sky Sports.

“I probably supported him too much, maybe saying that people should give him a break. We put it in that situation by having some reserve pilots, but that gave us options as a team,” said Poperecognizing, finally, that it was the same team that put Doohan in the pressure situation by putting together a large squad of possible replacements behind. “I think there has been a lot of noise. Obviously we have Franco (Colapinto) with great support. Paul (Aron) did a phenomenal work in F2 and also struggled in the tests, but I think it is a good option for the team because we need those reserve pilots. It is a great program with the TPC tests (cars of at least two years old) and the simulator,” he added.

To close, he supported the work of Pierre Gasly’s partner: “As a race pilot you would love not to have someone stepping on your heels, but also on our part, you know, we have been quite open in that both Jack and Pierre have all our support. Jack did a good job in Bahrain. He has been very good here from the beginning, and I think it can be seen that he is taking some confidence because it is not easy for rookies. We saw on this track that an early pair of early mistakes can put you in trouble. ”

Doohan was consistent and competitive in the first two days of activity in Australia with respect to his teammate, whom he managed to win in the practices. In classification, the yellow flags caused by Lewis Hamilton’s spin complicated him in his last attempted at Q2 and could not advance to the final segment. It was 14th, but it had a rhythm to enter Q3.