When Alpine’s announcement that Oscar Piastri would make his Formula 1 race debut for them in 2023 was publicly contradicted by the driver, another member of their junior roster sprang into action.
Jack Doohan knew it was his opportunity to replace Piastri as the team’s leading reserve driver, and potentially even claim a race seat for the 2023 F1 season.
That may not have materialised but Doohan, who did not expect to run in F1 practice at the start of the season, nonetheless earned the chance to make his debut in yesterday’s session at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Speaking to media including RaceFans after his “really cool” first outing, Doohan said he had been readying himself for the opportunity since Piastri turned down Alpine. “I’ve been preparing myself, trying to make my way into this paddock since, obviously, the news broke at the start of August. I’ve been aiming towards this so the nerves that I’d say usually would be, jumping from Formula 2 to Formula 1 and that being such a big thing, were a little bit less, just because I was trying to put myself into a position where this is where I want to be. I want to be driving Formula 1.
Doohan felt more nervous when he learned of his practice opportunity than when he made his practice debut on Friday.
“Obviously, when I hopped in the car and I was pulling out of the garage there was a lot of excitement, a lot of joy, heaps of emotions going on. But once I was out on track that got kind of flushed away. And that was hard to describe, really, what I was feeling, but it was a really cool sensation.”
The opportunity would not have come about had Doohan not immediately realised the implications of Piastri’s denial, early in August, that he would become an Alpine driver. Once he saw the post from his fellow Australian, Doohan knew his next career step rested on getting in touch with Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi.
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“All that news obviously broke,” he recalled. “I didn’t have Laurent’s number or anything. So I actually sent him a DM [direct message] on Instagram, basically this huge, big, long paragraph saying why I think I could be a candidate going forward.
“He replied at like 3am – I think he was in the US or somewhere – with his number at the bottom and that we should chat in the coming days.”
Doohan followed up…
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