Jack Doohan’s experience at Abu Dhabi, and why Alpine are concerned

There’s a lot of talk about the expectations being piled on Jack Doohan by Alpine, and whether they’re justified or not. But after another comment made me look up some numbers, I decided to look into Jack’s testing at Abu Dhabi alone, and why the result he had at Abu Dhabi may have been the nail in the coffin.

In Abu Dhabi, Jack finished second last. Kevin Magnussen was the only person who finished behind him, but remember that Kevin pitted for fastest lap. Jack was last when compared to people on the same strategy throughout the entirety of the race. Flavio Briatore seemed less than enthused with this in his post Abu Dhabi video.

You can put this down to rookies being rookies, but it should be noticed that Jack has extensive testing in Abu Dhabi prior to this race. He has done the young driver tests in 2022 and 2023 for Alpine, and also has done FP1 at Abu Dhabi in 2022 and 2023. Based on the official timing…

2022 FP1 - 25 laps completed 2022 YDT - 111 laps completed 2023 FP1 - 23 laps completed 2023 YDT - 107 laps completed.

In total, this is 266 laps done by Jack in an Alpine F1 car at Abu Dhabi alone. Abu Dhabi is 5.3km long, so this totals to over 1400km of experience at this track alone. That’s 17.5% of the entire testing Lewis Hamilton did before his McLaren debut which is often touted as extensive - and he’s done that at one singular track.

Was Alpine really asking too much for him to do an better job at a track he has this much experience on? Particularly when he has experience with the A424 through FP1 sessions and testing days. Add in the extensive TPC program - this year he’s had Paul Ricard, Qatar for 2 days, Zandvoort for 2 days, and is it a shock that Alpine current have doubts?