Alpine F1 boss hints media to blame for ‘unfair’ Jack Doohan exit speculation

Alpine F1 team principal Oliver Oakes has labelled speculation about Jack Doohan’s future with the team as “not fair.”

Despite having just one F1 grand prix start to his name, Doohan’s future has remained uncertain since the end of last year.

This is because of Flavio Briatore’s public admiration of Franco Colapinto.

In January, Colapinto was unveiled as Alpine’s new reserve and test driver, fuelling the rumours that Doohan was on borrowed time.

Alpine have insisted that Doohan’s future is secure - at least for now.

However, given Briatore’s willingness to bring Colapinto to the team and the likely financial benefit of having the Argentine in a seat, Doohan is under immediate pressure to perform on track.

Speaking to F1TV in the middle of pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit, Oakes discussed Doohan and credited him with ‘shutting out the noise’.

“I feel for him quite a lot at the moment,” Oakes said. “He’s getting a bit of flack. It’s not fair. At the end of the day, he’s getting his debut in F1. He’s had his debut in Abu Dhabi but it’s his first full year.

“It’s been a quiet winter so that’s been a news story. Franco is a popular kid as well so people want to see him in the car.

“From my side, it’s really good to have Jack with us. He’s come from our academy and did a good job in Abu Dhabi. Even this morning, he hit the ground running straightaway.

“Credit to him as well because he’s shutting out all that noise and getting on with it which is really good.”

Kravitz questions Oakes’ comments

Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz questioned Oakes’ response shortly after during F1’s testing coverage.

Kravitz dismissed Oakes’ notion that the media were to blame for the reports, rather than the speculation stemming from Alpine’s signing of Colapinto.

“It was interesting what Oakes was saying earlier,” Kravitz explained. To my ears, was he kind of blaming the media for not having enough to write about in order to write all the stuff about Colapinto in his fight against Doohan for that seat?

“The only thing I would say in response to that was that it wasn’t the media who signed Colapinto on a three-year testing role which is interesting if you’re going to be a three years as a test driver so you imagine that would turn into a race drive.

“It wasn’t the media who signed Mercado Libre - one of the biggest Franco Colapinto sponsors to the Alpine team - and it wasn’t the media who goes around taking selfies with Franco Colapinto and Flavio Briatore all the time.

“So, people might be a little bit forgiven I would say if I wasn’t interpreting that answer incorrectly for linking Colapinto with Doohan’s seat when there’s so much of it coming out from the Alpine themselves rather than people making up stories.”