Haas reserve driver Jack Doohan opens up on brutal Alpine axing

Doohan has recently returned to F1, as Haas’ new reserve driver, but his axing from Alpine was a key part of the Netflix docuseries Drive to Survive.

During the episode, Doohan admitted he’d received death threats via email and described the atmosphere around his final race in Miami as “pretty heavy”.

Did the Australian have any nerves about the episode airing?

“I’ve dealt with quite a lot the last 12 months of things outside my control… I had an idea of what was going to be portrayed. Still, it wasn’t a bad airing. You know, honestly, nothing’s ever the full story or to the full extent.”

There’s understandably still a lot Doohan can’t say about his time with Alpine, but the Australian admits the cut-throat nature of the sport and subsequent axing was more brutal than expected.

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The Australian was parachuted into a race seat with just a week’s notice for the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Alpine in 2024, but the stopwatch began to tick after Colapinto was signed as a reserve driver in early January.

Alpine’s management had several chances to make Doohan’s future crystal-clear, but danced around the subject, fuelling speculation the Aussie’s time was limited.

While Doohan’s on track performance in the early half of the 2025 season wasn’t spectacular, it’s worth noting his replacement, Colapinto, did not outshine him either. Both drivers finished the season on the same amount of points: zero.

Doohan said he understood the performance aspect of the decision behind the axing, but said it was “deeper than that”.

For now, Doohan is focused on his new reserve role with Haas, a team he says has welcomed him and “supported him very well”. While he admits there isn’t a clear road map for his career, his goal is to get back on the grid – an objective his dad is hugely supportive of.

When asked what his biggest lesson from last year was, Doohan pauses, sits back in his chair and runs his hands through his hair.

“It’s difficult to pinpoint one thing,” he said. “I learned a lot on how to handle the adversity and those difficult moments, [how] to work through it.”

Would he ever consider writing a memoir or autobiography one day to tell the full story of what happened with Alpine?

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“Who knows,” he laughed. “Maybe in the future, it could have been either the best thing that could have happened to me… to enable me to explore different opportunities, or it’ll still be as shit as it was, but there’s options to take from it.

“I definitely… won’t be dwelling on it or capturing it, but it could be cool… to create a little bit more insight on it when the time is right.”

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