Doohan out for vengeance in the Dutch dunes

Jack Doohan’s resurgence as an FIA F2 title contender will see him re-engage with Zandvoort this weekend, a track where the Aussie was front-and-centre of an action packed and calamitous 2022 race.

Back-to-back wins at Hungary and Spa and a podium at Silverstone in the rounds prior have seen the Alpine F1 Reserve driver rocket back into contention – 38 points in arrears of Frenchman Theo Pourchaire in fourth place with three rounds remaining.

He and his Invicta Virtuosi team has once again been able to unlock the pace that had him as a constant threat at the back end of 2022, although he’ll need to improve in qualifying if he is to be a serious challenger for this year’s crown.

Towards the end of last season, a litany of mechanical woes and bad luck saw a string of DNF’s derail his push for the title – or in the least, top rookie – as he finished the year with three straight feature race retirements.

Doohan had race winning pace at Zandvoort in 2022, topping practice then qualifying on the front row.

The first of those three DNF’s came at Zandvoort to end his title hopes, a week after Doohan trumped eventual champion Felipe Drugovich at Spa.

This weekend’s race has some eerie similarities to last year, with Doohan fourth on the table after having also beaten the championship leader at Spa.

The action packed race saw a calamitous series of incidents which ended up with Doohan becoming unravelled whilst in the box seat for a victory.

Starting in P2, Doohan stuck on the wing of poleman Drugovich, with the first incident coming when the now F1 Williams driver Logan Sargeant put himself in the wall trying to make up for a bad start.

On the restart the Aussie was his own worst enemy, locking up heavily whilst challenging for the lead in a faster piece of machinery to what the Brazilian was steering at the time.

A huge flat spot on Doohan’s front left spelt disaster, but instead of pitting, a determined Doohan managed to keep pace with Drugovich on an absolutely ragged tyre with commentators in disbelief that he was able to do so.

Doohan’s dominant win at Hungry kicked off a strong run for the 2023 Aussie F2 contender

After pitting on lap 13 to undercut Drugovich – and putting on some tyres that actually had rubber on them – the Brazilian responded in-kind on lap 14, emerging in front of Doohan on slightly colder tyres.

With the Aussie having the advantage and in the box seat for the lead, his own team started a chain of events that led to his demise when they failed to secure the front right wheel of Marino Sato’s to his car.

With Sato going into the wall after his tyre flew off, a yellow flag saw Drugovich and Doohan in P7 and P8 as the highest pitters, with Kiwi drivers Liam Lawson and Marcus Armstrong (Sprint race winner) on the front row.

When the flag dropped, Lawson failed to jump which caused a concertina effect, with Doohan sensationally being flung into the right side fence on the pit straight after a blind-sighted Richard Verschoor went into the back of him.

This weekend, Doohan will be out for redemption to keep his championship hopes alive for the August 25-27 outing. 

(disclaimer: Jack is far too pragmatic to race in a vengeful manner as he’s very much a one race at a time, in the moment kind of thinker…but the author has enjoyed his artistic license nonetheless)

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