It’s a tired journalistic cliché to describe a piece of breaking news as “not a surprise.”
But it is one that undoubtedly applies in the case of Franco Colapinto replacing Jack Doohan from the next round in Imola.
Flavio Briatore, who returned to Formula 1 as a consultant to Alpine in the middle of last year, was long thought so enamoured with Colapinto that doubts over Doohan’s future emerged before he even made his debut for Alpine.
Then there was the small matter of Colapinto’s sponsor accidentally announcing his impending Imola debut for the team during an interview for an Argentinian news channel last week. Despite the team’s denials, this morning it confirmed Doohan’s place will go to Colapinto for the next five rounds at least.
Doohan isn’t the first driver to lose his seat this year, though at least Liam Lawson had a parachute landing at Racing Bulls following his ejection from their sister squad. But was Doohan doomed by his results – and is Colapinto a hot enough talent to deserve his drive?
For
In his seven races since debuting for Alpine at Yas Marina last year, Doohan has struggled to distinguish himself. He’s had too many crashes and failed to score a single point.
Last year Colapinto showed it’s not unrealistic to expect a driver promoted from Formula 2 to be competitive immediately. He wasn’t error-free, but was a much closer match for his team mate than Doohan has been.
After a similar number of races, Colapinto seems the better prospect. This is a tough but fair call.
Against
Doohan made progress during his spell at Alpine. His lap time deficit to Pierre Gasly has been respectable for a rookie, though the closeness of the midfield has exaggerated the gap in terms of places, and he even qualified ahead of his team mate last week.
Colapinto proved no less crash-prone last at Williams last year than Doohan has. He appears to have got the Alpine drive partly thanks to the sponsorship he brings.
Doohan deserved a full season to prove himself and Alpine did not give him a fair chance.
I say
It’s easy to understand the sympathy for Doohan. But he hasn’t been especially impressive over his first few races as a Formula 1 driver. He crashed out on the first lap last weekend in Miami, just as he did at his home race two months earlier.
He tangled with rivals in China and missed a chance to score points in Bahrain. This and more explains why he’s currently tied at the bottom of RaceFans’ driver ratings with the only other driver to lose his seat so far this year, Liam Lawson.
But Alpine showed a conspicuous lack of faith in him and it’s hard to imagine that didn’t have an effect. The writing was on the wall once they needlessly benched him for the first practice session at Suzuka, one of the toughest tracks on the calendar.
Given that, judging whether Doohan deserved to keep his seat based on his performances so far feels somewhat naive. Any team which is serious about running two competitive cars should be prepared to stand by the drivers they put in them for longer than six rounds. If Doohan is being judged not up to that standard now then Alpine’s management should ask themselves why they put him in the car in the first place.
You say
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