Ted Kravitz reveals the ‘paddock wisdom’ being shared about Jack Doohan’s F1 future after the Japanese Grand Prix

Jack Doohan has experienced a very tough start to his Formula 1 career with Alpine in some of the most difficult circumstances any driver on the grid has faced during their rookie campaign.

Alpine thrust Jack Doohan into the limelight with just a few days’ notice when he made his debut at the end of last season, before hiring a squad of reserve drivers over the winter break to put pressure on his race seat.

Franco Colapinto and Paul Aron tested in Monza over the same weekend that Doohan had one of the biggest accidents in recent F1 history at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Doohan was deprived of his car during FP1 to make way for former reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa, but his run in FP2 only last four full laps he careered into the barriers at turn one at high speed.

Jacques Villeneuve questioned Doohan’s F1 future after his crash in Japan, which followed up receiving four penalty points in China and a first-lap shunt at his home race in Australia.

Ted Kravitz was on the ground at Suzuka and has shared the rumblings he’s heard about Doohan’s place on the grid going forward.

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Jack Doohan has until the Miami Grand Prix to save his Alpine F1 seat, says Ted Kravitz

Kravitz was asked on The F1 Show what happens now with Doohan after another tough weekend, and he replied: “Do we think he’s still got until Miami?

“That’s the paddock wisdom, that they’re going to give him until Miami and then make a decision.

“Colapinto’s driving FP1 in Bahrain in place of Gasly’s car, so they’ll see.”

Co-host and pundit Naomi Schiff replied: “So we’ve got Bahrain, we’ve got Saudi [Arabia], and we’ve got Miami. So he’s got three races.”

Kravitz continued: “And then after that, before we get to Imola, the start of the European season at Imola, they’ll make a call.”

Broadcaster Simon Lazenby added: “I did kind of feel like much of the chassis was on the wall, perhaps the writing was on the wall at that very point.

“It did feel like to me that all of the pressure was bearing down on him and it was too much.”

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Naomi Schiff analyses why Jack Doohan is under so much after the Japanese Grand Prix

Schiff went into further detail about Doohan’s race weekend in Japan and explained: “It was Friday afternoon, it was just a mistake that he couldn’t afford to make.

“I get it, he’s not been on the track, should we call it not fair, it wasn’t the easiest of situations for him to jump into FP2 with no laps in FP1.

“But, this is a driver who’s been doing loads of laps for this team in testing, and also loads of laps for them as a reserve driver in the simulator.

“So, you would think that you want to cover all of your bases when you know you’ve got a driver who’s hot on your heels for your seat.

“Those are the small things that you can’t forget to do, and by the sounds of things, he also wasn’t disengaging the DRS in the simulator because there’s no risk in the simulator, or whatever the reason was, we don’t know exactly but it just feels like, cover your bases.

“You don’t want to make a mistake like that because you don’t have the muscle memory from the simulator, but maybe it’s a capacity thing.

“Maybe it’s because he’s so under pressure and so desperate to prove himself and get everything right, he might in that moment just have been too focused on getting the lap right or focusing on the speed that some of the other details faded into the background.”

Jack Doohan staring down the barrel of being Formula 1’s first dropped driver of 2025

Doohan hasn’t performed badly in many of the sessions he’s taken part in, setting quicker lap times than teammate Pierre Gasly on multiple occasions.

However, at key moments he’s made critical errors that have hampered his progression, something he simply can’t afford to do with Colapinto lined up to replace him in Miami if things don’t improve quickly.

Doohan and Colapinto will go head-to-head during FP1 in Bahrain, with Gasly sitting out of the session to make way for Colapinto.

It’s a test of how both drivers can handle the pressure, with Oliver Oakes and, more importantly, Flavio Briatore watching on and monitoring their progress.

The young Australian has the two most important weekends of his racing career ahead of him, and although Liam Lawson was the first driver to lose his seat on the grid, Doohan would be the first driver to disappear completely if Alpine make a brutally early call.