Jack Doohan was privately furious after taking the fall for error that cost Alpine £1.3m this season

Jack Doohan may have taken part in his last Formula 1 race for Alpine. Franco Colapinto appears set to take over from the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix onwards.

F1 Oversteer reported on Monday that Alpine are considering whether to swap Doohan and Colapinto for the race at Imola. Typically, such discussions only end one way.

Doohan has only made seven appearances for the team, having debuted at last year’s Abu Dhabi GP when Esteban Ocon made an early exit. He’s still yet to score a point.

The Australian has shown flashes of promise. Most recently, he outqualified teammate Pierre Gasly for the first time at the Miami GP on Saturday.

But Doohan’s race ended after first-corner contact with Liam Lawson, and his team clearly believe he’s been involved in too many incidents. He already has four penalty points, putting him a third of the way to a race ban, though he wasn’t blamed for the Lawson clash.

Alpine showed a lack of class after Jack Doohan’s 185mph Japan crash

Perhaps Doohan’s worst moment so far came in practice for the Japanese GP in April. He slammed the barriers at turn one at 185mph after losing control of his car.

Replays showed that he’d kept the DRS open into the high-speed right-hander, a technique he’d used in the simulator. As a result, he didn’t have enough downforce to make the corner.

Doohan accepted that this was his mistake, but according to The Race, Alpine didn’t tell him ‘to do anything different’. Therefore, they had to bear a ‘degree of responsibility’.

While senior Alpine staff tried to ‘help Doohan as best they could’, he was left to take the fall. ‘He was not happy’ with the lack of support he received.

Doohan’s Suzuka crash cost Alpine £1.3m, a major dent in the cost cap. But the team arguably showed a lack of class by making him a scapegoat.

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Even before the season started, it seemed as if Alpine were setting Doohan up to fail. It was clear from the moment they signed Colapinto that he was under threat, even though he hadn’t had a sufficient chance to prove himself.

While they played down the speculation at times, Alpine refused to come out and say publicly that Doohan was their driver until the end of the season. And that may be why he was characterised by a certain desperation.

Indeed, as per The Race’s report, Doohan felt he deserved more protection. The aforementioned crash may form part of the team’s official explanation if they go through with the swap.

The tension in the camp was evident when Doohan got upset with Netflix crews on Friday. He was visibly rebuked by team principal Oliver Oakes for his furious radio messages, and the Drive to Survive cameras quickly descended on him afterwards.