Jack Doohan has processed the F1 Australian GP crash and has already set his sights on China, as Pierre Gasly rues strategy call which undone points chance.
It started well for Alpine’s Doohan in his home F1 Australian GP weekend but he hit a snag during qualifying when he had yellow flag on his final push lap in Q2. And it went a bit downhill for him at the start of the grand prix on Sunday, when he crashed post the safety car re-start.
He couldn’t complete a lap to kick-start his first full F1 season. It certainly hurt him when he is already under pressure to deliver. But he is taking confidence from how he started the weekend. In fact, he noted about running different aero to Gasly to start before switching to his.
“For sure I was [hurting] when [the crash] happened,” said Doohan to media. “But in this sport things happen very quickly as we’ve just seen. The next round is already almost upon us. It was an unfortunate way but a lesson is learned. I’ve digested it. There’s a lot of positives that we have to take away from this weekend. For me they outweigh this negative. I’m looking forward to bouncing back for next weekend.
“To be honest, the grip was okay, I felt quite comfortable, I wasn’t even overlaying to see how it shape-up, the team quite were quite okay. Obviously, they were on the extreme and not only inter and it seemed I lost it on the third to fourth gear upshift. As soon as I went into fourth I lost the car. So some things that I’m going to need to understand because for me that wasn’t out of the normal, but a constant learning process.
“Unfortunately this one has big consequences. But I’ve definitely learnt and I’m going to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. I think maybe a combination of the white line. But it seems that we had a spike in RPM when I’ve upshifted to fourth, so we’re just double checking to make sure that everything’s behaving itself, and maybe a little bit less right foot, a little bit more left. And we are good to go,” summed up Doohan, who felt good with his pace all-weekend long.
It is disappointing result, but he is already looking ahead to China. “To be honest, the pace was strong. We were split on aero for most of the weekend and we were still quite OK in FP1 to FP3, shaping up next to Pierre,” continued Doohan. “We went for the high downforce yesterday afternoon, which I felt much more comfortable on and to be honest, we were quite strong.
“I think yesterday afternoon if we could have completed that Q2 lap we would have been comfortably in the Q3 on a high 1:15, and that already would have put us in a good place. I think P8, P7, was on the cards yesterday afternoon, if, buts and maybes, but it’s good confidence to know going in for the rest of the season. It’s my first shunt in one of these Formula One cars, I’m sure it won’t be the last, it’s a brutal way to have it, but it happens, we’re humans.
“I didn’t want it to happen, but it has. so I’ve accepted it, and I’m not really looking for excuses out there for other drivers or anything like that. I made this mistake, and I accept and I look forward to bouncing back. I was obviously disappointed in myself, I was also trying to understand what has just happened. As I said, things move fast, so did the crash, so I was just processing and accepting what had happened. There is no time to dwell in this sport as soon we will be in China and my head needs to be clear looking forward and focusing on that,” summed up Doohan.
Team boss Oliver Oakes agrees that they have put pressure on him, but he reiterates that it is needed as they have a F1 team to run. “It’s fair to say we’ve caused a lot of the noise, being open,” said Oakes of the pressure on Doohan. “We haven’t put him in the best position there.
“But flip it the other way, we’ve got a duty as a team to perform, we’ve got 900 people who depend on us to make the right choice for the team. Probably, if it had been anyone else who was signed as a reserve driver without a big following and all of the noise that comes with that, it would have been slightly different.
“But it was probably quite a quiet winter, other than Lewis’s move, everyone was looking for something to write about. But hopefully now [this will] give it a couple more races to just settle down a bit.” From looking racey, Alpine ended up with no points in their kitty after delay in strategy. Gasly was running at the fag end of the points but eventually lost with the strategy and off moment.
“It is a shame that when you stay out, you actually do the hardwork and keep it on track which we did, the slick tyres was handful to drive but you could see that a lot of guys were making mistake and I thought okay, really keep it on track, it would be fine,” said Gasly to media. “I managed to pass Yuki, I think we were looking like third or second on track at that time, I thought okay, if it stays like that then I can barely hold on it, but we did one or two extra laps and the rain increased.
“We ended up losing out too much. For sure, it is a bit of frustration because we spent majority of the race in that group with Yuki, Albon and Lewis, I think for fifth, sixth and seventh, which is where the battle was and in the end, we dropped and that last safety car, I just lost the front-right disc, the thing just went there and I couldn’t get the temperature in it and everytime I braked, I could not slow down the car and I kept locking the front-left tyres, so just feels like, it didn’t come our way and we missed out, P11 is clearly a bit of a shame but it felt like a bit of lottery when you look at the final classification.
“As for Jack, to be fair, it was probably the toughest condition here, even myself out there in the first few laps at the start of the stint, I think we just were struggling for grip. Honestly, he has been doing a pretty good job during the weekend, just a shame like it was probably throwing him in the deep end with this sort of condition, I am confident he will come back and do the job, honestly, he’s been doing very well.”
Here’s how F1 Australian GP panned out
