Jack Doohan, further and further away from Alpine
The Australian, who was a starter for the Enstone team in the first six races of the year, is looking for new horizons to continue in Formula 1.
The calendar pages are cut so quickly that it seems that Jack Doohan raced in Formula 1 years ago. However, the Australian was part of the 2025 grid by running the first six races of the season with Alpine. After the Miami GP, the Alpine team decided to demote the Gold Coast team to the reserve position and seat Franco Colapinto in the A525.
When Alpine made the announcement of the change of ownership in its squad, on May 7, the official statement included statements from Flavio Briatore in which he assured that the Argentine would have five races and that he would be part of the driver tests to find the best formation for 2026. That never happened, in fact, in Imola, where Colapinto debuted, the Italian priest did not know where the five races had come from…
Since then, Doohan was left as a reserve, traveling to several races. According to The Race, during the European summer vacation, the team would have opened the door to the Australian to the possibility of returning for the last three races of the year, as long as he obtained a sponsorship that would increase Alpine’s finances.. Until that moment, Colapinto had only shown some sparks with the weak A525, but his pace was not consistent.
However, The Argentine began to improve. Already in the Hungarian GP, just the race before the start of the break, the Argentine found rhythm and put up a fight with his teammate Pierre Gasly, always in the context of the worst car in the category. Colapinto’s rebound continued after the holidays and he beat Gasly in four of the five classifications that were held for main races (in the United States there was a sprint) and finished ahead of the Frenchman in three competitions. Added to this is the strong economic support that comes to Alpine from the Argentine corner, especially in the trilogy of the United States, Mexico and Brazil, with the special decoration on the A525 for the Mercado Libre campaign.
Doohan, meanwhile, lost ground. Since his departure from ownership, he has not carried out any private tests with old cars, as expected, and even his work in the simulator was limited. As if something were missing, Briatore already warned that the second seat in 2026, to accompany Gasly, This is a compromise between Colapinto and Paul Aron, a decision that will be known in November, as Enstone sources confirmed to AM850.com.
With his future at Alpine almost closed, Doohan evaluates new possibilities. With the financial support that his father Mick, five-time world motorcycling champion, obtained, he could be a candidate to occupy the reserve position of Cadillac, a team that will join in 2026 with Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as starters, but which still has the substitute position vacant. The Americans opted for Colton Herta, but the former IndyCar driver (he will race in F2 next year) does not have a superlicense.
