Doohan’s Alpine lifeline fades as late-season swap plan collapses
Jack Doohan’s path back to an Alpine race seat has narrowed to a pinhole after a behind-the-scenes push to replace Franco Colapinto for the final three rounds fell over at the last minute.
Doohan, who started the year alongside Pierre Gasly before being benched after six point-less starts, had lined up backing to jump back in for the United States–Mexico–Brazil swing. The plan hinged on Alpine giving the Australian the nod if sponsorship arrived and Colapinto’s struggles persisted. The money came together. The seat did not.
Colapinto, promoted mid-season after his impressive cameo with Williams in 2024, is now set to see out the 2025 campaign with Alpine after key partner Mercado Libre agreed a short-term deal tied to those flyaways. It’s ruthless, it’s F1, and it’s more evidence that Enstone’s second seat is being steered as much by politics as pace.
From the pit wall, the picture is blunt. Flavio Briatore, Alpine’s executive adviser — and, importantly, Doohan’s manager — has already framed the 2026 call as an internal two-horse race between Colapinto and reserve driver Paul Aron. He’s ruled out shopping externally despite a volatile market elsewhere. Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson? Not on the Alpine board, per Briatore’s line last month.
That doesn’t leave a lot of room for Doohan. Even before this latest twist, the Australian has felt increasingly peripheral. While Colapinto banked valuable mileage in Testing of Previous Cars at the start of the year, Doohan’s planned TPC running was shelved and, according to paddock whispers, his Enstone simulator time has been curtailed too. He remains on-site most weekends in his reserve role, but that’s not the same as race rhythm — and Alpine knows it.
Colapinto hasn’t lit up the timing screens, but there has been movement in the right direction. He’s outqualified Gasly at three of the last five events and, crucially, he now has commercial wind at his back. In a midfield fight decided by tenths and budgets, that matters.
For Doohan, the sting is obvious. He’s been repeatedly told since the summer that a comeback was possible if he could bring partners and the performance case was made. He delivered his part. The rest changed around him.
So what’s left? Doohan isn’t short on ambition or allies, and Alpine remains his preferred route back onto the grid in 2026. But with the team plainly leaning toward Colapinto versus Aron, that door looks close to shut unless something seismic happens.
There had been a speculative Plan B. Over the summer, Doohan was linked to the incoming Cadillac operation for 2026 after his father, five-time 500cc world champion Mick Doohan, was spotted deep in conversation with team boss Graeme Lowdon at Silverstone. Cadillac has since confirmed Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Pérez as its race drivers for its debut season. The reserve role is yet to be nailed down publicly, and IndyCar star Colton Herta has joined in a test capacity as he hunts Super Licence points, but whether that leaves a realistic lifeline for Doohan is unclear.
Strip it back, and Alpine’s situation is familiar: a team in transition, leaning on pragmatism. Gasly is the known quantity. The other seat has been a revolving door since spring, yet the organisation is now behaving like a group that wants to stabilise, even if the results have been thin.
It’s hard not to feel a touch of sympathy for Doohan. The timing hasn’t helped him, and the modern driver market is brutal when you’re sitting on the sidelines watching your competitors amass mileage, highlight reels and sponsor decks. He’s quick, marketable and still only 22. But right now, none of that seems to be enough to tilt Alpine’s calculus.
Unless Alpine changes course — or a fresh opportunity opens elsewhere — the likeliest outcome is that Doohan spends the winter on the outside looking in, wondering how a three-race rescue mission that once looked alive got strangled by a logo on a sidepod.
The moral, as ever: in F1, a seat is never just a seat. It’s a balance sheet, a test plan and a boardroom decision wrapped in carbon fibre. Doohan knows it. Alpine’s just reminded everyone.
