Doohan set for Alpine race seat

Australia may have three drivers on the Formula 1 grid in 2025, with Jack Doohan set to be promoted by Alpine in the coming days, becoming Pierre Gasly’s team-mate from the start of the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship.

AA understands that key staff at the team’s base, in Enstone, in the UK, have been informed of the decision, which could be announced at any time. The team’s recent signing – last week – of new CEO Oliver Oakes might delay an announcement a few days while he ‘gets his feet under the table’, but we’re told it’s a ‘done-deal.’

With Oscar Piastri secure in a long-term deal with McLaren and Daniel Ricciardo fighting to either replace Sérgio Pérez at Red Bull or keep his seat at Racing Bulls next year, Australia could have three full-time drivers in Grand Prix racing for the first time in a long time.

The last time three Australians took part in the same Grand Prix was in the 1976 USA Grand Prix, when one-time Formula 1 driver Warwick Brown joined future World Champion Alan Jones and Brabham stand-in Larry Perkins on the Watkins Glen grid.

From the moment it became clear to Alpine’s former management that Carlos Sainz wasn’t seriously considering their offer to join Gasly next year, Jack Doohan became their number one choice, even if there were other experienced drivers, like Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, knocking on the door.

The young Australian driver has impressed the engineering team with his speed, consistency and feedback every time he works on the simulator and also during his rare track tests, his plan for this year matching what the French team had prepared for Oscar Piastri two years ago.

Back then, the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix winner had been forced to take one year off racing to fully focus on a testing program that would prepare him to race for Alpine in 2023, but a series of mistakes by then team boss Laurent Rossi led to his departure for McLaren.

Now Alpine seems determined to avoid a similar scenario and is believed to have taken the option over Doohan’s services within the contracted deadline, guaranteeing the Aussie a race seat for next year.

In the days after the Belgian Grand Prix, Alpine looked set to make the formal announcement of Doohan’s promotion, but with Oliver Oakes having just arrived at Enstone to take over the role of Team Principal and Flavio Briatore not permanently available for meetings and discussions, it was decided to give more time to the new power duo to discuss matters, before making any announcements.

It’s also possible Oakes brings his own ideas about which drivers he wants to work with in the future and that could carry a lot of weight as the British manager is believed to be the face of a group that will eventually acquire the Enstone-based team from Alpine.

That could influence the length of Doohan’s deal but it is not expected to get in the way of the Aussie’s official Grand Prix debut in his home race, the 2025 Australian Grand Prix, next March.

Photo by Mark Sutton / Sutton Images/LAT

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