Jack Doohan is working to gain experience within the Alpine F1 team ahead of his expected promotion to the reserve driver role currently occupied by Oscar Piastri.
Oscar Piastri has left the Alpine F1 team after a contract dispute and will join McLaren for his F1 debut in 2023.
Both Oscar Piastri and Jack Doohan are members of the Alpine Academy, with Doohan being the second member of the Academy after Piastri.
F1 teams are highly sensitive and limit the information that leaving staff can access. Daniel Ricciardo admits the process has already begun at McLaren.
So it makes sense to expect the same to happen to Oscar Piastri within the Alpine F1 team.
Jack Doohan is well-positioned to take on some of the responsibilities the Alpine F1 team is unwilling to offer Oscar Piastri.
At the recent Grand Prix, Jack Doohan showed up in the Alpine F1 team’s garage during a session.
Asked by Speedcafe.com about his current role, Jack Doohan said, “Honestly, I’m just trying to learn as much as I can.”
“It’s a good opportunity to take advantage of and be able to sit there and read and analyze the data from the two cars throughout the session and listen to their reports and analysis.”
“When we have an opportunity like this, we will use whatever is available to help us in F2.”
Jack Doohan is one of Esteban Ocon’s teammate Alpine F1 Team options for a vacant seat in the 2023 season.
But more likely, Pierre Gasly will join Aston Martin to replace Fernando Alonso.
That depends on whether Red Bull releases Pierre Gasly, who is under contract and stationed at Scuderia AlphaTauri until the end of 2023.
Red Bull F1 motorsport adviser Helmut Marko is in talks with Nick de Vries about signing Gasly’s current AlphaTauri F1 seat for the 2023 season.
Initially it was aimed at Colton Herta, but those plans were dropped after he was unable to secure an F1 Super License.
If Yuki Tsunoda and Nick de Vries can join as teammates, Pierre Guthrie can transfer to the Alpine F1 team as originally intended.
In that case, Jack Doohan could be promoted to Formula 2 for at least one more season and a reserve driver role for the Alpine F1 team.
In fact, it’s likely to happen before the end of this season, but it hasn’t been officially discussed yet.
“Of course Oscar is still under contract with Alpine this season and is Alpine’s reserve driver,” said Jack Doohan.
“Before they think anything is proposed to Billion, they need to sort out what’s going on with him and what’s best for them going forward.”
“Honestly, there’s not much more I can say.”
“I would love to talk more, but for now let me focus on F2 and let the results speak for themselves.”
“Hopefully we can see what we can do in the off-time before Abu Dhabi, but I can’t say more than that at the moment.”
Jack Doohan, fourth in the rankings in his first full-time season in F2, already has three wins in 2022.
Felipe Dolgovic has already secured the championship in F2 for 2022. The Brazilian has signed a contract as his reserve driver for the Aston Martin F1 team.
