Jack Doohan insists there is still a “good opportunity” for him to race in F1 as he prepares to make his European Le Mans Series (ELMS) debut this weekend.<\/p>\n
The Haas reserve driver will dovetail his duties for the American squad with Nielsen Racing in the endurance championship, which kicks off its season with the four-hour race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old was unceremoniously dropped for Franco Colapinto just seven rounds into his Alpine tenure and left Team Enstone at the end of last year.<\/p>\n
Now, as he returns to competition in the LMP2 class of ELMS, Doohan feels he is ready to get back to the rigours of a full-time seat.<\/p>\n
“It’s all excitement for me,” he told RACER. “There’s not much nervous anticipation. If I wasn’t prepared, I would say so.<\/p>\n
“I think when preparation is done correctly, there are nerves associated with excitement and the unexpected. But regarding the aspects in my control, I think the nerves are okay.<\/p>\n
“There will be the factor of doing my first live driver change, there are firsts coming from F1 and F2, but I feel quite good.<\/p>\n
“I haven’t raced in almost a year, and within that time, I wasn’t able to drive a car either. It’s a long time to be outside a car, not just racing but driving.<\/p>\n
“Before my seven races with Alpine, I’d also not raced in the year prior, in 2024 [apart from the F1 season finale in Abu Dhabi]. There’s been a gap, so it’s important to do this to get race fit and build up consistency again.”<\/p>\n
But despite the shifting away from single-seaters for his return to racing, the Australian is adamant he still has a foot in the door in F1, even if he does welcome a career racing a car with a roof.<\/p>\n
“I definitely don’t rule it [a future in sports cars] out, and there’s been some great opportunities to be in sports cars,” he added.<\/p>\n
“But transparently, Formula 1 is the ultimate goal, and right now there’s still a good opportunity, not just a hope in the air. There’s still a foot in the door.<\/p>\n
“However, if that wasn’t the case, this would be a nice focus \u2014 you can have a great career in sports cars.”<\/p>\n
Article continues below.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tDoohan’s main focus<\/p>\n
Doohan will be joined by former F2 colleague Roy Nissany, who raced in ELMS LMP2 last year for Duqueine, and British driver and fellow rookie Edward Pearson.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got great team-mates,” he said. “Roy, I’ve known for some time during my days in F2. Ed, I don’t know him well, but he’s a strong Silver [rated driver], and I remember him from when I was with Virtuosi in F2, and he was with them in the F4 team.<\/p>\n
“With Roy, I actually tested alongside him when I got my first taste of the ORECA in Abu Dhabi. It’s been great to pick his brain. He’s very strong; he showed a lot in F2 when things were right.<\/p>\n
“We’ll be diving in to get a nice, consistent package between all of us. The team has also been very helpful to get Ed and I up to speed. It’s a well-structured organisation.”<\/p>\n
With LMP2 being a spec series using the ORECA 07, there is a lot to learn to get up to speed against rival teams and drivers.<\/p>\n
“I’m just focusing on the race, and the relevant areas where an impact can come from,” Doohan stated.<\/p>\n
“It’s been about familiarisation with the car, comfort over long runs and traffic. It’s difficult to outline where we are before Round 1.<\/p>\n
“My main focus is to work with the team, stay race fit and sharp and get good results. If we do everything right as drivers, I think we won’t be in a bad place, but I’m not looking too far ahead as it’s a long championship.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jack Doohan insists there is still a “good opportunity” for him to race in F1 as he prepares…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3518,3521,3519,3522,3520,3517,3515,3513,3516,3514,111,139,69,3512,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-376254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-daniel-ricciardo","9":"tag-f1-calendar","10":"tag-f1-live","11":"tag-f1-results","12":"tag-f1-standings","13":"tag-ferrari","14":"tag-formula-1","15":"tag-lewis-hamilton","16":"tag-max-verstappen","17":"tag-motorsport","18":"tag-new-zealand","19":"tag-newzealand","20":"tag-nz","21":"tag-racing","22":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}