Jack Doohan apparently did not manually deactivate DRS ahead of his huge Japanese GP practice shunt, Jacques Villeneuve branding that “laziness”.

And picking up one some reports that this stemmed from Alpine simulator experiments from Doohan, 1997 World Champion Villeneuve warned that “bad habits” will follow a racing driver from the virtual to the real world, with Doohan swerving the chance to comment on it all.

Jack Doohan Japan FP2 crash: ‘Bad habit’ from the sim to blame?

A lengthy red flag period was triggered in the second hour of practice at Suzuka after a major Turn 1 shunt for Doohan, one which he thankfully walked away from unhurt as he lost control of his Alpine at the high-speed entry to Turn 1 and slammed into the tyre barrier.

According to Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes, Doohan made a “misjudgement” in forgetting to manually deactive his DRS as he entered the fast, swooping right-hander, though claims emerged that Doohan had successfully been able to attack that corner with DRS open in the Alpine sim, so attempted it in real life.

Analysis from PlanetF1.com’s resident data expert Pablo Hidalgo revealed that the only difference between Doohan’s first push lap and the start of the second – when he suffered the crash – was that the second time around, he still tapped the brake but did not lift off the accelerator before starting to turn the wheel into Turn 1, indicating that as the cause of the accident.

The combination of a brake tap and accelerator lift had been enough on the first push lap to deactive DRS going into Turn 1.

But, as Villeneuve – on Sky F1 punditry duties in Japan –  picked up on the simulator rumours, he called that “laziness” from the Alpine driver.

“From what we hear, in the simulator, he was leaving it open,” said Villeneuve of Doohan’s DRS.

“But for no reason, because you’re going to have it open for, what, 10 meters? You don’t gain any speed.

“So it must have been laziness of not closing it, because, why? What are you going to hit? It’s a simulator.

“But, then you get muscle memory, you get into a very bad habit. When you get to the real car, your focus, the corners are coming, you don’t think about what you have to do, you go by habit.”

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Doohan has faced immense pressure as an F1 rookie before his season even began, with the arrival of Franco Colapinto as Alpine reserve sparking rumours that he may well replace Doohan before F1 2025 is over.

And when it was put to him that such a crash could shake Doohan’s confidence, Villeneuve was not having any of that theory.

“You’re talking about the confidence, yeah, drivers aren’t used to these big crashes anymore,” he said. “It was kind of the norm in the past. The cars were difficult to drive, and there were a lot of accidents and very damaging.

“Now, the cars are safer, and the drivers get surprised when they have a big one, and that was a big one. Well cushioned by the tyres, you know, that’s an amazing technology from the ’50s. It still works, protects the car.

“But the confidence, why? Because he knows why he crashed. He wasn’t driving too fast. It’s not that he didn’t feel the car. He just forgot to close the DRS. So why should there be an issue?”

Doohan was asked about all the talk surrounding his FP2 crash and DRS after qualifying P19 for the Japanese Grand Prix, but gave very little information.

“About attempting to do that [keep DRS open], to be honest, I would prefer not to touch on that and just sort of put that in the past and look forward to tomorrow, no disrespect,” he told Sky F1.

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