🇧🇭 F1'25, R04: Hope Spot

To outline how good the weekend was for Alpine, Pierre Gasly outscored Haas, VCARB, Aston Martin, Williams and Sauber in Sakhir as Team Enstone lifted themselves off the floor of the F1 Teams’ standings.

The French driver finished seventh after being caught by Max Verstappen’s Red Bull on the last lap in Bahrain. Four rounds in, Alpine were the only team yet to score points, starting to look somewhat stranded as others pushed forward. 

The team is shelving its works engine and being added to the list of Mercedes customers, a driver finished outside the points in Shanghai and was disqualified anyway, there are rumours at varying volume of the team being sold, always debunked, and the whispers that one driver only has a guaranteed contract until after Miami being loudly shouted by a legion of loyal South American fans.

It would look, on the surface, that all is not well at Alpine.

But Gasly’s points came at a time of the season when the order is still shuffling itself around. Gasly has won one race in his F1 career, negotiating his way around the chaos of Monza 2020 in his Alpha Tauri, collecting 25 points and some incredible photos as a result. But Monza is not his most lucrative circuit. If you needed a fun quiz question, in Gasly’s F1 career, he has scored 32 points at two different venues. One, the tight, windy Monaco track, the other, is Bahrain, where 2025 was his fifth points finish in Sakhir.

It started from qualifying, where after George Russell and Kimi Antonelli were hit by one-place grid penalties, Gasly was ahead of the young Italian driver at the start, And he held off his former teammate Verstappen for lap after lap until the reigning World Champion beat him for sixth place on the final time they went through Turn 4. 

However, the better Gasly does, the more it throws into sharp relief that Jack Doohan is yet to score a point in Formula 1 this season.

He’s not alone, and is not suffering the indignity of being 22nd in a 20-driver championship, but the Australian is one of two rookies to not score a point in this season’s Championship. The other is Gabriel Bortoleto, who, in a Sauber that is underpowered is somewhat more forgivable.

Doohan’s last season in F2 was 2023, where you could argue that the graduating class that year was a little bit cursed. Theo Pourchaire won the title, didn’t get to F1, and didn’t have a fun time driving an IndyCar around. Fred Vesti was second and took part in FP1 with Mercedes this weekend, but probably won’t get an F1 seat, with Kimi Antonelli seen as the future. Doohan was third, ahead of now VCARB/Red Bull reserve Ayumu Iwasa.

After sitting out most of 2024, Doohan got a chance to race for Alpine at Abu Dhabi, replacing the departing Esteban Ocon, finishing 15th and since then, it’s difficult to think of any highlights he has had since having the Alpine seat full time.

Well, other than his smash in Suzuka, where the simulator told him that sure, you can leave the DRS open going into Turn 1, a marvellous combination of ambition, naivete and daring. The crash was a properly nasty and painful official welcome to Formula 1, and footage of Doohan struggling to get out of the car after the race was an uncomfortable watch.

The rumours abound that Franco Colapinto is being lined up from the at Flavio Briatore’s disposal to replace Doohan after the coming race in Jeddah and then Miami at the start of May. It would not be the first driver change of the season, with Red Bull and VCARB exchanging Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson, but if this swap happens, it would be the first one in 2025 where the replaced driver heads back to the sidelines.

Colapinto has already been a midseason replacement in Formula One, taking nine races at the wheel with Williams last season once they realised Logan Sargeant was not the answer. The Argentine made an impression, scoring five points, but was also expensive as he suffered multiple crashes, notably in the poor Brazilian weather, offsetting the commercial revenue he brought along with him.

While Gasly is now scoring, potentially finding a bit of rhythm and momentum, the same doesn’t seem to be happening for Doohan. He desperately needs a positive result in Jeddah, where he did take a Feature Race podium in 2023. A points finish feels like the only thing that would keep his F1 hopes alive before the first US race of the season, and if Doohan is going out, he’s doing it with a third-party helmet reveal.

Doohan has partnered with Jason Oppenheim from Selling Sunset for the race to get a helmet designed, standing out in a race where all the spotlight is already on him. Even if he was to sneak a 10th place in Jeddah and/or Miami, it doesn’t feel like this would be enough. Alpine look like they’re targeting fifth, competing with Haas and Williams with Aston Martin continuing to be out of sorts. 

The question for Alpine, therefore, is whether a driver swap is the answer, and if it isn’t, then how do they get Doohan to be closer to his teammate more often and finishing in the top 10?

It has been a long weekend for motorsports fans, with MotoGP, F1, F2, F3, Formula E, IndyCar, GT World Championship, NASCAR all making a mark on racetracks across the world. For F1, the triple header moves from Sakhir to Jeddah, and a fast, twisty, claustrophobic street circuit that contains 27 corners snaking around the Saudi Arabian coast. 

With one Australian taking the win, Oscar Piastri is proving that the spotlight is not too harsh for him after leaving Alpine. The current Alpine lineup is having trouble working out what their identity is, but increasingly, it’s looking like it does not include Jack Doohan.