Former F1 star turned pundit Ralf Schumacher believes that Jack Doohan could lose his seat before the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend after making a ‘fatal mistake’ during the race at the Suzuka Circuit last time out. Doohan’s seat was under intense scrutiny before the season had even started, with reports emerging suggesting that the Australian racer only had six races to prove his worth.
With Franco Colapinto waiting in the wings after making a move from Williams to Alpine, Oliver Oakes and Flavio Briatore could easily executive a quick swap. The 22-year-old’s rookie campaign started in a nightmare fashion. After a relatively strong qualifying, Doohan crashed on the opening lap in Melbourne, and he followed this up with a tumultuous weekend in China, where he picked up four penalty points for incidents with Gabriel Bortoleto and Isack Hadjar.
Then, with the pressure dialled up in Japan, Doohan made another costly error. The Gold Coast-born racer entered Turn One with the DRS open in FP2, sending his car into a high-speed spin before smashing hard into the barriers. After a brief internal investigation, Oakes confirmed that driver error was the cause of the crash.
“He’s driven by his own team, but also by his driving,” Schumacher told Sky Germany after the Japanese Grand Prix. “He makes a lot of mistakes and isn’t fast enough. One more thing happened this week.
“Ryo Hirakawa, who got into the car in the first practice session, was right on par with Pierre Gasly. He got in and made this fatal mistake. This will be analysed from a team perspective. At the moment, he’s overwhelmed by the situation. They’ll sit down with him, and I’m curious to see what happens. He’s not guaranteed to be in the next race.”
While Hirakawa’s lap times were impressive relative to Doohan’s performance in FP2 and the remainder of the weekend, the Japanese driver, who competes for Toyota GAZOO Racing in the World Endurance Championship, is not first in line to step into F1.
In fact, Hirakawa left Alpine after his FP1 session, joining midfield rivals Haas as their official reserve driver, with four practice starts confirmed for the season. Instead, Colapinto is the man Briatore and Oakes fancy to spur the team forward.
The Argentinian racer drove the 2023 challenger, the A523, at Monza over the weekend along with fellow Alpine reserve driver Paul Aron. “We fought to have Franco in the team and he is one of the most important assets for us,” Briatore said, assessing his standing in the organisation. “We have to be patient because he is very young, but I believe in talent.”