Assessing Doohan's slow-burn debut at F1's Abu Dhabi finale

Abu Dhabi's season finale was, in effect, "Race Zero" for Jack Doohan. Alpine pounced on a chance to give the Australian his Formula 1 debut a race early, pre-emptively relieving some of the expected pressure that Doohan might have experienced in his home race in 2025. Thus, the Enstone squad released Esteban Ocon a race early to make it happen.

This was the culmination of Doohan's apprenticeship at the team. The son of five-time grand prix motorcycling champion Mick had plied his trade for the past year in old Alpine machinery, under the testing of previous cars regulations, but his focus on a reserve role over 2024 meant that there was a year's worth of race-rust to dissolve over the weekend.

Usually, a rookie driver's aim in their first race is to keep the car on track, and adopt a brevity-is-the-soul-of-wit approach to keeping it light with set-up - generally allowing themselves to be led by the team on the details. But Doohan showed great mental capacity for more, perhaps shaped by his reserve duties by the past year, and a desire to not get caught out by an unfamiliar situation.

Citing the confusion over the abandoned/aborted/delayed start rules in this year's Brazilian Grand Prix, the Queenslander revealed that he'd spent a considerable period of time familiarising himself with the sporting regulations to avoid any similar pitfalls.

"I've been doing quite a lot of testing, whether that's a race simulation, a quali simulation, but there is a different aspect of being on a race weekend while testing," Doohan explained before the weekend. "You don't have 19 other cars on track and qualifying. There are no legal sporting regulations really to follow.

"So there a quite a few things that I've been touching up on this week on the sporting regulations side, making sure that I'm making the most and not putting myself in any uncomfortable situations."

Gasly's upgraded Alpine - and vast advantage in experience - meant a comparison to Doohan isn't fully accurate

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

How Doohan truly got on at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is obfuscated somewhat by the disparity in car specification between he and Pierre Gasly. Although two sets of the upgraded nose and front wing were supposed to be available for the season finale after Gasly ran with the sole set in Qatar, Doohan had been equipped with the older version for Abu Dhabi. This creates a natural offset in the two cars, so a direct comparison is not quite possible.

Regardless, Doohan hinted at pace to come with a Gasly-matching time in FP3 - the two were separated by 0.026s at the close of the session, both on equivalent soft-tyre runs. But this didn't quite translate into qualifying where, on their opening two laps, Gasly and Doohan were separated by just a tenth. And, while Gasly improved on his second run by half a second, Doohan only found 0.027s of improvement on his follow-up - and lost time in the opening sector that he had to make up over the second half of the lap.

His braking pattern was a lot more uncertain on the entrance; Doohan wavered on the pedal before getting the car turned in, which sapped about 0.2s from his previous effort. By comparison, Gasly was much more deft with the brakes - suggesting much more confidence overall.

"There's learning to be done on the hard tyre. I’m happy to finish on the same pace as others, on the same strategy towards the end of the race. So just looking forward to taking this all into the next season" Jack Doohan

Doohan made this up through Turns 6 and 7 by simply braking later for the left-right DRS intermission and looked like going quicker through his approach in the braking zone for Turn 12, but the following series of corners led to only a marginal improvement.

Versus Gasly, Doohan lost time in the lower-speed corners; generally, the Frenchman was later on the brakes and earlier on the throttle, all general indicators of a driver's great confidence - and experience - with a car. Although the incoming rookie has some experience with the A524, having built up to the weekend with a previous practice session at Silverstone (Canada's wash-out FP1 notwithstanding) and the Friday sessions at Abu Dhabi, it's not yet second nature to him.

The goal for Doohan in the 58-lap Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was to get to the end and, if the pace was there, help Gasly out in the battle for sixth in the constructors' championship. Contributions to the latter point were muted, as was probably expected.

Race engineer Josh Peckett gave Doohan his instructions over the formation lap, concluding with a "rolling bite-point find" and "three burnouts" - and was satisfied with the rookie's inputs and tyre-warming procedures over the run to the grid. Equally, Doohan's initial getaway was also on the money, but he had to immediately dive to the right to avoid the RB of Yuki Tsunoda, which was currently mired in an anti-stall malaise.

After an early battle with Tsunoda, Doohan got into the groove on his F1 race debut

Photo by: Lubomir Asenov / Motorsport Images

From there, the opening corners were somewhat unkind to the Alpine driver: he got boxed in through Turn 2 and 3 by the recovering Max Verstappen - fresh from his skirmish with Oscar Piastri - and Zhou Guanyu, which gave Alex Albon an in to make his way past before Turn 5.

PLUS: How Abu Dhabi clashes show the F1 grid has learned how to stand up to Verstappen

Here, Doohan got a bit of a swapper on in his over-eagerness to stomp on the throttle, now giving Tsunoda the opportunity to jump back ahead and gather the inside line for Turn 6. Doohan was left out of road and had to escape to the run-off, but resumed the battle with Tsunoda over the following corners.

The Japanese driver attempted to thread his RB down the inside at Turn 9, leaving Doohan to hold the outside to preserve the position. This prompted a switch of line from Tsunoda, who attempted to make a rare overtake at Turn 12. Again, Doohan resisted this and kept the place, having kept the car on track and maintained the inside line for the next corner.

Doohan suffered a small lock-up at Turn 6 on the following lap, as the virtual safety car was called just as he'd made it to the braking zone. His brake temperatures were "on the high side", per Peckett, but there was a chance to cool them down while the VSC remained in operation.

Although prepared for the VSC restart, which eventually took place on the following tour as Doohan exited Turn 5, Tsunoda was better prepared and took a look into Turn 6 - but instead made the magic happen on the run to Turn 9. This later became a happy hunting ground for the Sagamihara-born racer, as his race was defined by a clutch of impressive offensive and defensive moves into the sweeping left-hander.

Over the next few laps, Doohan settles into a rhythm. And, from looking at his inputs on the steering wheel, it becomes quite evident that he tends towards a smoothness with his driving; through-corner steering is deliberate and rarely features any moments of opposite lock if the front doesn't bite.

But there's also a consistent amount of slip at the rear on exit, particularly at Turn 5, as he bounces off the limiter and starts to induce wheelspin. Gasly is very slightly later on the throttle, but this means he's straightened the car up before attacking the longest straight on the circuit.

Doohan had to take his medium tyres much further into the race compared to Gasly

Photo by: Alpine

Against Gasly, Doohan ran to a very different formulation of a medium-hard strategy; the senior driver got the earlier stop and only had to take his yellow-walled tyres to lap 15; the younger tasked with continuing with his mediums to lap 23. This accounts for the disparity in their first-stint laps, as Gasly could push more and not have to worry about drop-off towards the end of his stint. Doohan, meanwhile, was warned to watch the aforementioned Turn 5 slip and start managing his tyre temperatures with lift-and-coast tactics.

During the eight-lap tyre offset Gasly has on a new set of hard tyres, there's over a second a lap between them. At this phase, Doohan is managing while Gasly is imbued with fresh tyres, but the theory is that Doohan can push a bit more later on with his own hard tyre set. But he's conservative here, and this is something he freely admitted to post-race: in the opening 10-15 tours of the stint, he's off Gasly by about 0.5s-1s per lap.

"There's learning to be done on the hard tyre," Doohan explained afterwards. "I’m happy to finish on the same pace as others, on the same strategy towards the end of the race. So just looking forward to taking this all into the next season.

When anticipating how 2025's rookies are going to stack up in their first full season, Doohan - despite having the most storied surname in motorsporting circles - is perhaps the one who courts the least attention

"[I need to learn] how much to push on the first 20 laps on that hard tyre on the second stint, I obviously came past Bottas who was struggling quite a lot on the hard and I didn't really know how much to push. I didn't want to overcook it on my first race and lose out to [Kevin Magnussen].

"I think just can push more and use the tyre a little bit more. But nevertheless, I'm grateful that I finished the race and took so much learning from it."

Doohan did pick up the pace and, around the spikes in lap time from blue-flag hopping, the gap started to come down to Gasly's lap-on-lap pace. In that circumstance, the one-time grand prix winner was on tyres that were a fair whack older, but it was nonetheless good to see Doohan build in confidence. More time is available under braking, especially during qualifying laps, and there might have been a little bit of the Gold Coast native wanting to drive within himself a bit to get to the chequered flag.

Interestingly, he found one of the hardest things to do by the end was use his thumbs for the steering wheel buttons. He explained that this was unusual but, on closer inspection, this might be down to how he was holding the wheel.

Doohan and Gasly race lap times compared at the Abu Dhabi GP

Photo by: Autosport

Take Gasly, for instance, he holds the wheel with a tight left-hand grip, thumb clearly through the hole, and a right-hand grip with his thumb pressed against the centre console - it's a bit like Stewart Copeland's traditional drum grip, in many ways. Doohan has a much slacker grip with both hands, leaving his hands much more susceptible to being thrown about by bumps - and his thumbs clearly move about a lot more.

Of the debutants over the past year or two, Doohan's debut is a lot more in line with Liam Lawson's Zandvoort 2023 debut, rather than Franco Colapinto's first race at Monza 2024. Lawson's debut race showed a methodical and calm streak, much like Doohan; by comparison, Colapinto had clear moments of overstepping the limit but arguably showed more flair in his maiden race. But flair isn't everything.

When anticipating how 2025's rookies are going to stack up in their first full season, Doohan - despite having the most storied surname in motorsporting circles - is perhaps the one who courts the least attention. But that might play to his advantage; his easy-yet-controlled approach to driving might not dazzle, but one predicts that rookie-year crashes might be rare at Alpine. And if Doohan can build on that, he'll be able to grow in F1 and impress - as long as Flavio Briatore is willing to display some semblance of patience.

What can Doohan produce in 2025?

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images