Jack Doohan will be in the Alpine at race five, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and also beyond, with whispers in the paddock claiming he has until the summer break to secure his future with Alpine.

Doohan arrived on the F1 2025 grid hounded by reports that his days at Alpine were numbered, the Aussie not doing himself any favours with two big crashes in the first three weekends.

Is Jack Doohan’s future secure, for now?

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

But despite his big off in FP2 at the Japanese Grand Prix, he redeemed himself in the race when he made up more positions than any other driver. Alas, the Grand Prix was still a no-score for Alpine.

That change in Bahrain got the team off the mark via Pierre Gasly, while a P11 on the grid marked Doohan’s best qualifying performance of the F1 2025 campaign.

He wasn’t able to join his team-mate inside the points, undone by a Safety Car and a penalty for exceeding track limits.

“20 laps too long,” Doohan told the media, including Planet1.com, of race after running inside the top 10 in the first half. “It was looking quite good on the soft and the medium.

“We boxed at the right time for the hard and a bit of bad luck on the Safety Car – six cars behind us on new softs. I pushed quite a lot to try to keep them behind, and yeah, once one went through, no rear tyre, then the rest just followed.

“Then we picked up a time penalty which knocked us back a couple of places. So yeah, very unfortunate.”

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Sunday’s result may have been unfortunate, but overall Doohan’s improved level of performance has been noted by Alpine, one of the engineers telling Sky F1’s Karun Chandhok that it is “‘nearly there’ for Jack Doohan”.

So nearly there that it is understood that Doohan has until later this season to secure his race seat after speculation initially suggested he was only assured of the first quarter of the championship.

Team principal Oliver Oakes to the media, including PlanetF1.com, that he was happy with the Australian driver’s progress.

“He’s done a good job this weekend. And I think in general, I know Japan FP caught him out a bit, but I think this weekend, particularly throughout qualifying – sort of Q1, first run of Q2., I think the last run in Q2 is a little bit disappointing because I think it was just half a 10th.

“But then in the race as well, those first two stints, he was doing a really good job. I think at the end there, I think it was tricky. The Safety Car bumps everyone up, competitiveness-wise, it was hard with those cars around.

“But he’s had a good weekend.”

Should the latest speculated deadline for Doohan prove to be correct, the 22-year-old has nine races in which to prove himself to Alpine. And there is no guarantee that Colapinto will be the one to replace him if the call is made.

Alpine have two reserve drivers knocking on the door in Colapinto and also Paul Aron, who like his Argentinean team-mate and rival also completed a day of TPC running at Monza earlier this month.

PlanetF1.com understands that Aron’s performance, especially in light of his minimal F1 running, impressed Alpine, with the highly-rated Estonian set to carry out FP1 appearances for the team this year.

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