Jack Doohan’s bruising Suzuka audition: two crashes, one opportunity
Suzuka still has Jack Doohan’s number. The Alpine-contracted Australian, looking to reset his career after losing his 2025 race seat mid-season, endured a messy three-day Super Formula test with Kondo Racing — crashing on consecutive days at Degner 2.
Day one ended with rear-end damage. Day two ended nose-first. The 22-year-old walked away both times, unhurt but hardly unnoticed. For a driver trying to stitch together a 2026 programme that could pair Super Formula mileage with a potential F1 reserve role at Haas, it wasn’t the headline he needed.
The Degners are the kind of corners that separate tidy from total commitment. They also expose any rust. Doohan’s rust is understandable. His 2025 F1 campaign with Alpine lasted six races before he was replaced by Franco Colapinto at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, and his last big Suzuka moment wasn’t pretty either: a high-speed FP2 off in April after failing to close the DRS before Turn 1. He was cleared by the medical centre and, to his credit, fronted up. But Suzuka clearly keeps score.
The Super Formula link makes sense on paper. Kondo Racing runs Toyota power, and there’s been chatter that a deal in Japan could dovetail with a reserve gig at Haas. Toyota’s global motorsport director Masaya Kaji, speaking to Autosport, kept it deliberately vague — “There’s nothing concrete I can say now, but he is a good driver” — which is exactly the sort of lukewarm endorsement you’d expect while the pieces are still moving.
Kondo, for context, isn’t the softest landing. The team finished seventh in last year’s championship on 29.5 points with a single podium across 12 rounds. The benchmark was Docomo Team Dandelion Racing on 215 points; among Toyota outfits, TOM’S led the line with three wins courtesy of Sho Tsuboi and Sacha Fenestraz. If Doohan does sign, he won’t be parachuting into a dominant car — he’ll be asked to improve a solid but unspectacular package while learning some of the hardest cars and circuits outside F1.
That challenge is precisely why Super Formula keeps drawing in F1-calibre names. You get big downforce, proper tyres and tracks that punish laps, not just mistakes. It’s also a place where a couple of scruffy tests don’t kill your year, provided the data and debriefs are sharp. Teams in Japan value speed, yes, but they also value how quickly you get on top of the discipline. It’s a small paddock; word travels.
As for Haas, the logic there is straightforward. A reserve role would keep Doohan in the F1 ecosystem and inside a live race operation week-to-week, with a 2027 race return the obvious target. Haas already has its 2026 line-up with Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman, and both are understood to be out of contract at the end of next season. Seats move. Opportunities appear. A neat dual programme would keep Doohan’s reflexes sharp and his face in the right garages.
For now, though, nothing’s signed. That includes Japan. Doohan’s Super Formula mileage with Kondo remains test-only, and he’s still under contract with Alpine, a deal believed to run through the end of 2026. The badge on his shirt still matters — Alpine has options up and down its ladder, and keeping a driver race-active is rarely a bad policy.
Two shunts at Degner in two days won’t flatter any driver, let alone one under the microscope. But this is still pre-season testing in a category built to test. Suzuka is unforgiving, and it’s claimed bigger names than Doohan. The more important read will come with his next run: can he dial out the snap, build rhythm through sector two, and start logging those relentless, low-drama laps that make engineers relax?
Doohan doesn’t need a miracle. He needs a clean week, a car he can lean on, and a bit of patience from decision-makers on both sides of the world. The job is to turn a bruising audition into a platform. In Super Formula, and in F1’s waiting room, that’s still on the table.
