Alpine will part ways with Esteban Ocon at the end of the season, creating a vacancy for reserve driver and Australian rising start Jack Doohan to make his Formula 1 debut in 2025.
A shock mid-season Alpine driver split. An Aussie young gun waiting in the wings to seize his chance.
Australian fans have seen it all before.
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You’d be forgiven if your mind immediately turned back to the middle of 2022. Fernando Alonso made the surprise announcement he’d be leaving the team to join Aston Martin. Oscar Piastri, on the team’s reserve roster and already highly touted, was the presumed heir.
Then the situation spectacularly blew up. Piastri denied he’d don the blue overalls. Alpine management accused him of disloyalty only for an inquiry to find the team had never offered him a contract. The Melburnian joined McLaren, where he’s been in superb form ever since.
But this time the situation is very different.
Alpine, down and out after years of desertions and management clean-outs, needs a homegrown win for one of its own.
Jack Doohan is ready to step up.
And with Australia already boasting two Formula 1 drivers in 2024 — notwithstanding Daniel Ricciardo’s uncertain future — we could be only months away from the dream scenario of having three Aussies on the grid.
ALPINE NEEDS DOOHAN
There are two clear differences between the saga that forced Piastri out of the team and the situation now facing Doohan.
Though only two years ago, Alpine is a changed operation. It’s undergone several rounds of bloodletting — sometimes chaotic, sometimes ugly — as its 100-race plan to win races by 2024 became increasingly untenable.
The loss of Piastri was a case of catastrophic mismanagement, but with so little of the 2022-era management in place, such drama is distant in the rear-view mirror.
Doohan, in any case, isn’t the sought-after proposition Piastri was, and he’s on the record as being eager to make his debut for the team that’s supported his junior career.
But there’s a more important motivation Alpine will have to get Doohan onto the grid.
Put simply, it would be a waste of time and money not to.
Alpine’s junior driver academy has backed 30 former and current drivers on the road to Formula 1 since parent company Renault returned to Formula 1 as a constructor in 2016.
Three of them have made grand prix appearances, two of them as full-time drivers — not a bad strike rate given the limited seats available in F1 and the glacial rate of driver turnover.
But none of those three made their debut with Alpine.
Jack Aitken was admittedly an outlier, getting a one-race chance at Williams in 2020 to cover George Russell, who was temporarily promoted to Mercedes to substitute the sick Lewis Hamilton.
Zhou Guanyu was a more substantial loss, having raced with Alpine’s backing in Formula 2, where he collected 20 podiums, including five victories, over three seasons on his way to third in the 2021 championship.
Alpine gave him a free practice outing in 2021 but released him to the Alfa Romeo-branded Sauber team the following year, where he’s still racing until at least the end of this season.
Oscar Piastri, however, was the one that got away.
The Aussie was already marked out as something special when he joined the junior team in 2020. Winning the F3 title that season and the F2 championship the following year — both on debut — confirmed that the French team had a generational talent on its hands.
Yet Enstone fumbled, first by benching him for a year, then by suggesting he spend an indefinite number of years at the back of the grid with Williams before comically not offering him a valid contract for 2022 or 2023 anyway.
He jumped ship to McLaren, where he’s established himself a genuine frontrunner.
Not every driver in a junior program is going to get an F1 seat. In fact most never will.
But at the moment the Alpine Academy stands charged with having spent millions of dollars preparing drivers to race for rival teams.
If it’s not going to promote Doohan now, one wonder why it funded his junior career and has kept him on the books as a reserve driver at all.
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‘THEY WANT ME TO BE READY FOR FORMULA 1’
There are plenty of reserve drivers in Formula 1 with no hope of nabbing a full-time seat, but Doohan should not be one of them.
The Australian has the racing pedigree to deserve a crack at the big time, and his sure, steady trajectory of improvement suggests he could make a real fist of it.
His maiden Formula 3 campaign in 2020 was quiet, but he ended his second season as a close-runner up for the championship.
His first full-time F2 campaign in 2022 delivered sprint and feature victories, and a strong ending to that season had him marked as a title favourite in 2023.
Were it not for serious car problems — “technical gremlins and … a cracked chassis halted us for the first five rounds,” he told Fox Sports earlier this year — he probably would have done it too.
Instead he was forced to undertake an unlikely charge home. He was the highest scoring driver in the final five rounds and finished third in the standings, only 35 points off the title lead.
Despite the disappointing outcome, there’s no denying Doohan’s massive improvement over his four years in the feeder series.
But to race for a third year in F2 and a fifth on the F1 undercard is all reputation risk with scant chance of reward. Instead he chose to fully embed himself in the Alpine team to try to make himself the most F1-ready rookie on the 2025 market.
“I had plenty of options in various different series this year, all in top motorsport categories,” he told Fox Sports earlier in the year. “Hypercar in World Endurance Championship, IndyCar, Super Formula and even in middle of last year Formula E — everything was there.
“It was the decision that Alpine wanted. They wanted me just completely, solely and only focused on Formula 1 and solely focused on getting a Formula 1 seat.
“I’m trying to stay sharp. The 5000 kilometres [of testing] will be great. I’m keeping up my very high level of training and just staying ready so I am ready to jump in the car.
“I’m in a great position within the team. They’re giving me the mileage, they want me to be ready for Formula 1, and I’m ready.”
Taking a year off racing was a gamble, but Ocon’s departure has massively boosted its chance of paying off.
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WHO ELSE IS IN THE FRAME?
All that said, Doohan isn’t alone in the frame for Alpine.
While retaining Pierre Gasly ensures the team has race-winning pedigree in its line-up, it remains in competition for Carlos Sainz’s signature.
The Spaniard is one of the grid’s elites. Bringing him to Enstone would be a strong argument against perceptions that the team is in free fall.
It’s an unlikely acquisition, though, with Sainz said to be choosing between Williams and the future Audi project at Sauber.
Valtteri Bottas is a more realistic target, and his 10 race wins and 20 poles would make him a valuable pick-up for any team scrapping for points. He is, however, on several shortlists this silly season, and Alpine’s woeful position near the back of the pack may not immediately entire.
Yuki Tsunoda is also said to be testing the waters given his route to Red Bull Racing appears closed, though Alpine’s lack of form would presumably act as a deterrent to a switch.
Doohan also faces one non-F1 challenger to the role: Mick Schumacher, the Formula 3 and Formula 2 champion now racing for Alpine in the World Endurance Championship, where his No. 36 entry is so far scoreless with a best finish of 11th.
Though he’s a Mercedes F1 reserve driver and team boss Toto Wolff has regularly sang his praises, Schumacher has never been considered for Lewis Hamilton’s seat, and the Austrian principal has said he’d be happy to facilitate him getting a drive elsewhere.
With Alpine having comprehensive insight into Schumacher’s ability, it can make an informed decision between the German and the Australian without having to rely on impressions from his uninspiring years at the back of the grid with Haas.
Schumacher versus Doohan is a fascinating head-to-head proposition.
Michael Schumacher and Mick Doohan are old friends. Michael Schumacher gave Jack Doohan his first kart. Mick Schumacher was named after Mick Doohan.
Their stories are intertwined, but only one of them can be at the top of the list for promotion to Ocon’s seat.
With Doohan under contract, Alpine can afford to wait if it wants to weigh up its options, and with at least three rookies tipped to debut next season — Oliver Bearman at Haas, Andrea Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes and Liam Lawson at RB — some experienced drivers will be forced to the table sooner or later.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR ESTEBAN OCON?
Ocon had long been tipped to leave Enstone for a team higher up the grid in 2025, but the timing of the news is unusual, coming before the Frenchman appears to have signed a contract for next season.
The decision comes a week after Alpine team boss Bruno Famin threatened “consequences” for Ocon crashing into teammate Pierre Gasly on the opening lap of the Monaco Grand Prix and jeopardising the team’s second top-10 finish of the season.
Gasly scored a point for 10th, but Ocon retired with heavy damage.
Despite the sudden announcement, the two events aren’t thought to be directly connected, though Ocon’s Monte Carlo antics undoubtedly crystallised in the mind of management that its current driver line-up is no longer tenable as the team enters a crucial rebuilding phase ahead of the 2026 regulations.
The relationship had run its course, with the F1 website reporting Ocon was pushed before he could jump.
Whether the series of events will damage Ocon’s value on the market remains to be seen.
The 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix winner has been heavily connected to Sauber, which will become the Audi works team from 2026, where he’s said to be second on the list behind preferred target Sainz.
With Sainz reportedly weighing up a potential Williams move, the odds of Ocon finding refuge in Switzerland are shortening.
If not there, Haas and Williams both have openings.
The American team will almost certainly place Oliver Bearman into Nico Hülkenberg’s vacated seat, but Kevin Magnussen is increasingly thought to be on the outer.
Williams, meanwhile, hasn’t shied away from the idea that Logan Sargeant will need a miracle to extend his Formula 1 career into a third season.
Ocon said he would announce his 2025 plan “very soon”.
The 27-year-old Frenchman paid tribute to Alpine for having kickstarted his Formula 1 career.
“The Enstone-Viry family has played a significant part in my life, dating back to my Lotus junior program days,” he wrote on social media. “I feel incredibly lucky and privileged to have achieved the things I did with this team, from my first podium to my first win in Formula 1. These achievements truly were dreams come true.
“I’ve crossed paths with so many inspiring individuals in my time here, and there are too many people to thank for their hard work, passion and dedication to the cause but also for their kindness and support I received over the years.
“We had many ups and certainly some downs, but all I can say is that it was an honour racing alongside you, whether you were at the factories or trackside.
“Still, there is a long way to go this season and my focus and energy is 100 per cent dedicated to this team and the work we need to do together to move forward and maximise our results on track.”
Famin, who has overseen significant changes at all levels of Enstone since acceding the top job in a coup in the middle of last year, thanked Ocon for his five years of service to the team.
“During his time we have celebrated some fantastic moments together, the best of which coming at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix with a memorable race win,” he said.
“We still have 16 races to complete in 2024 together with a clear objective: to continue to work tirelessly as a team to push for the best on-track results.
“We wish Esteban the very best for the next chapter of his driving career when that moment comes.”
Alpine said it would announce its 2025 line-up “in due course”.
Source Agencies
