New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nEarlier this month he confirmed he would switch to Haas as the team\u2019s reserve driver for the year, the first under new regulations, in the hope of keeping his foot in the door of Formula 1 and reignite his dream of a full-time grand prix racing career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s been my best 10 months, but we\u2019re starting fresh,\u201d Doohan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy to put the past behind me and embark on this new journey with a clean slate and get back to the drawing board, be a sponge and take everything in that I can and learn as much as possible so I can contribute where I can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Haas drivers are out of contract at the end of the season. Most of the rest of the drivers are also up for renewal in what promises to be an unpredictable silly season.<\/p>\n
Though Doohan\u2019s contemporary F1 experience, even if only brief, was part of the appeal of signing the 23-year-old, his seven grands prix will be to his detriment when it comes to getting seat time this season.<\/p>\n
Only a driver with two or fewer grand prix entries is considered eligible to acquit the requirement for each team to run an inexperienced driver during four practice sessions each year.<\/p>\n
That job will likely fall to fellow reserve driver and Toyota sports car ace Ry\u014d Hirakawa, who completed all four practice outings for the team last season.<\/p>\n
While Doohan said getting track time during private testing \u201cwill be ideal for sure for both sides\u201d this year, the Australian also said he wasn\u2019t willing to sit on the sidelines for a third consecutive season in the hope of getting an F1 seat.<\/p>\n
Doohan gave up opportunities to race in other categories alongside reserve duties in 2024 at the request of his Alpine team. He made a strong enough impression during that apprenticeship to get himself into the seat, but his early axing meant he\u2019s competed in just seven races in almost 27 months \u2014 too few for a young professional racing driver.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s most important that I\u2019m still racing, that I get race fit,\u201d he said. \u201cI haven\u2019t raced much at all over the last two years with sitting out in 2024 by choice of the team and then last year unfortunately not racing as much as I would have liked, so it\u2019s crucial that I stay race fit this year with a program that I\u2019m hopefully able to finalise in the coming days.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat will then allow me and the team to structure my attendance to make sure I\u2019m trackside as much as possible but also in the sim at the factory making sure that the work is being done behind the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drivers walk away from two fiery crashes | 01:21<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters during testing, Doohan revealed that he\u2019s working on a sports car program in the European Le Mans Series that could see him tackle the 24 Hours of Le Mans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was testing the last two days in an LMP2 car on Monday and Tuesday [last week],\u201d he said, per Motorsport. \u201cWith the way things planned out and only being able to join quite late in the year of January, it hasn\u2019t obviously revealed too many options for racing plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut potentially in an ELMS, an LMP2 car and to do Le Mans \u2014 whatever is going to fit best while also spending as much time as I can here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Potentially complicating his objective is that all six rounds of the European Le Mans Series and the 24 Hours of Le Mans clash with Formula 1 grands prix, albeit they amount to only seven weekends.<\/p>\n
Doohan, however, said the need to stay race fit was the critical objective.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s super important to have the platform and the foundation to be able to perform, number one, in something strong, but also to get miles and to get laps,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing, yes, to be in a race-winning material and machinery is important, but for me at this point, I didn\u2019t race in 2024, I raced six races last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust getting laps at this point in time and being race fit is the number one priority, and preferably in strong machinery.\u201d<\/p>\n
But racing in sports cars alongside his F1 reserve duties was aimed at making it back onto the Formula 1 grid.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is the complete goal,\u201d he said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be wanting just to continue being a reserve driver.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal is to be in Formula 1 and to race in Formula 1. I\u2019ve been given that platform to have a go at with Haas, so I look forward to trying to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jack Doohan wants to get back onto the Formula 1 grid by 2027, but he won\u2019t give up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[1724,64,63,689,936,245681,14210,245683,817,245684,813,816,1802,245688,245685,245680,14211,2045,245543,245538,824,677,245682,33108,245687,245678,245686,59978,2109,85,83937,245679,29467,12000],"class_list":{"0":"post-485218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-asia","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","12":"tag-bahrain","13":"tag-comeback-goal","14":"tag-driver-market","15":"tag-drivers-walk","16":"tag-f1","17":"tag-fiery-crashes","18":"tag-formula-1","19":"tag-formula1","20":"tag-franco-colapinto","21":"tag-getting-seat-time","22":"tag-getting-track-time","23":"tag-grand-prix-entries","24":"tag-grands-prix","25":"tag-jack-doohan","26":"tag-maxime-martin","27":"tag-mikael-grenier","28":"tag-motorsport","29":"tag-oceania","30":"tag-practice-outings","31":"tag-practice-sessions","32":"tag-prix-racing-career","33":"tag-professional-racing-driver","34":"tag-reserve-contract","35":"tag-reserve-driver","36":"tag-silly-season","37":"tag-sports","38":"tag-sports-car","39":"tag-sports-car-program","40":"tag-way-things","41":"tag-western-asia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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