Jack Doohan had done everything right.
He’d won races and challenged for championships in Formula 3 and Formula 2, establishing his Formula 1 potential.
He’d accepted his Alpine team’s request to sit on the sidelines in 2024 as a dedicated reserve driver, turning down offers to race elsewhere.
He’d done the work to convince the team that he was the man to replace Esteban Ocon in 2025, and he was compelling enough to warrant a shock debut in the final race of the 2024 season when Ocon was dismissed one race early.
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There, in the twilight of Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina, Doohan stepped onto the grid for the first time as a Formula 1 grand prix driver, the culmination of his short lifetime’s work.
But five months and seven races later, it was all taken away.
Alpine had had its head turned Franco Colapinto’s impressive stand-in appearances at Williams in 2024 — and his potential to bring big-money sponsorship wherever he raced — and lobbied to borrow him for 2025.
He was announced as a reserve driver, but it quickly became clear that the expectation from Colapinto’s camp — and from the Williams team to which he remains tied — was that he would be in Doohan’s seat sooner or later.
Sooner, it turned out — it took just six races for those expectations to become reality, and Doohan was turfed from the grid via press release after the Miami Grand Prix, his dream shattered.
“It was obviously strange times,” Doohan tells the Fox Sports Pit Talk podcast. “It was a weird 12 months of achieving that dream, having a three-year contract — you’re never secure.
“You’re still an employee at the end of the day, even as a race driver. You’re still under contract. But I thought was in a strong position, even with the noise that was going around and the press.
“I was head down and trying to do my job, although it does affect you in some ways, especially as it goes on.
“I was quite content and then it was quite a shock to the system.”
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What came next, though, was even more difficult.
Alpine announced Colapinto would undertake a five-race trial, after which the team would make an assessment on who should keep the seat — though de facto principal Flavio Briatore told the media shortly afterwards that the Argentine would have the seat indefinitely.
Behind the scenes Doohan was drip-fed hope. Some reports suggested he was given a dollar figure to raise as sponsorship for a shot at getting back behind the wheel even as Colapinto struggled to match Gasly.
“It was a little bit of a difficult path, but there was in some ways, without going in too deep into it, always a bit of a carrot,” Doohan alludes. “I was presented with opportunities of new possibilities in increments, so it never felt like it [a comeback] was so far away — at least that’s how it was at the start.
“It was more around Zandvoort time — so the end of the summer break, August — when I realised I wasn’t going to be hopping back in the car for that season and really had to see where the next steps were going to take me.”
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THE NEXT STEPS
Doohan, the son of five-time 500cc motorcycle champion Mick, was gradually sidelined into irrelevance at Alpine, with his track testing program canned and his simulator duties scrapped from June. Even so, it took him until January this year to extricate himself from his contract and begin to plan his future.
“It was a little bit of tough times,” says the 23-year-old. “When you get positioned in that place in mid-February, there obviously aren’t many things available to go and race — usually September the year prior is late.
“Things kick off April, May for things for the next season, so to be in that season in February is a little tricky.”
The first order of business was to keep his foot in the door to the Formula 1 paddock, and in short order he was confirmed as one of Haas’s reserve drivers for 2025.
It was a shrewd move, with Haas offering the Aussie a double chance of getting back onto the grid.
Oliver Bearman is a Ferrari junior driver racing on loan. He’s almost certain to be Lewis Hamilton’s replacement when the seven-time champion calls it quits.
Though Hamilton’s greatly improved form this year has in turn greatly diminished the likelihood of Bearman leaving Haas at the end of this season, an opportunity still exists to unseat Ocon.
The Frenchman is on thin ice at Haas, and though rumours of tension between team and driver have been overblown — and angrily denied by both parties — it’s clear Ocon hasn’t lived up to his billing as the steady-handed senior driver.
He was beaten by rookie Bearman last year, and the gap between them appears to have widened so far in 2026.
Should Ocon, who is out of contract, be sent packing, Doohan would be well positioned to lobby for himself as his replacement.
But by his own admission, Doohan’s desire is different in 2026.
Formula 1 is still his goal, but whereas there was a certain young-driver desperation to prove himself during his year on the bench in 2024, this year there’s a calmness in knowing that he can influence only so much of what happens next.
“It’s certainly a little bit different,” he said. “It’s hard to explain, but I’m not, let’s say, trying to force anything.
“Obviously it’s a slightly different position to what I have been before, where it was obviously pre [having] race experience and you’re in that junior driver category and you’re really preaching and trying to get that opportunity.
“There are opportunities that will come into my control that, in order to be in my control, are a little bit outside my control, if that makes sense.
“I’m just focusing exactly on what’s in my control, which is doing my best when I’m trackside, opportunities inside the car when they come, and apart from that, I’m not really over-analysing the outside noise that covers so much of what we do.
“If I managed to get back into a car, that would be amazing, but I know there are a lot more things than normal that are playing as a factor.
“I’m not locking too down. I think there is a good opportunity, but I’m not in the same place [as last year] where it’s the be-all and end-all.”
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‘SHOW WHAT I CAN DO’
Though Doohan’s time in the F1 wilderness was occupied by trying to maintain a firm connection to the paddock, he was also busy ensuring he didn’t spend a third consecutive season mostly on the sidelines, having entered just seven races over 2024 and 2025.
“It’s quite important in the job title, certainly — being a racing driver and then actually racing!” he laughs.
“Otherwise you’re just simply a reserve driver. You can’t classify yourself as a racing driver if you’re not racing.”
Doohan had initially been lining up a seat in Japan’s Super Formula, which has become a go-to destination for drivers on the fringes of F1 given the performance of the cars and the level of competition. Both Pierre Gasly and Liam Lawson used the series a final stepping stone to Formula 1.
That deal collapsed, however, following a messy three-day testing program with Kondo Racing that saw him crash three times at the second Degner corner.
Reports suggest car issues played a role in those wrecks, though engineering-level disagreements are said to have ultimately scuppered the deal.
That testing program appears to have coincided with an offer to race in the World Endurance Championship, with Planet F1 reporting the interested team was Ferrari with a place in its hypercar program. It’s unclear how far talks progressed, but the Scuderia announced its factory driver line-up in early December, while its AF Corse partner confirming its drivers in late January.
The clock was already ticking by the time Doohan signed his Haas deal, but the Australian found a home with British European Le Mans Series team Nielsen Racing, with a contract announced in April, on the eve of the first race.
As part of the deal, Doohan has also entered this weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans in the LMP2 class, giving an iconic Australian racing name a place in one of the world’s biggest motor races.
“Obviously it was an awesome opportunity just to jump in a car so late notice and last minute,” he says. “It’s a completely different style of racing and environment as a whole.
“I’m super excited for Le Mans — an awesome race and a lot of experience to come from that.”
It’s a welcome and high-profile outlet for Doohan, who is finally getting the chance to establish himself at a senior level as a racing driver.
But he’s also approaching it clear-eyed about the cut-throat nature of top-level motorsport after last year’s career setback.
“It’s just also good to have possibilities going forward,” he says. “Nothing’s ever a given.
“Obviously my main goal is still to end up back here in Formula 1, but it’s great to have opportunities and a place to show what I can do in a race car.”
A year after his F1 dream turned into a nightmare, Doohan might finally be able to let his driving do the talking.