Motorcycle legend Mick Doohan on why son Jack is the right man for Alpine

Amid the inevitable noise around the impending arrival of Andrea Kimi Antonelli on the Formula 1 grid his fellow 2025 rookie Jack Doohan landed an Alpine seat – replacing Esteban Ocon – with considerably less fanfare.

It’s a situation that suits the quietly spoken 21-year-old Australian just fine, and one that will potentially allow him to do his learning a little under the radar – although the spotlight will definitely be on him when he makes his debut on home ground in Melbourne. And no one will be prouder that weekend than Mick Doohan, five-time 500cc MotoGP world champion (1994-98), the man who has steered his son to the top level of a very different sport.

The younger Doohan’s career has followed a similar trajectory to that of Carlos Sainz Jr. Both were children of legends from other motor sporting disciplines who chose not to follow their dads, but opted instead for the karting and single-seater route. Both had someone close at hand who could guide them through the pitfalls of a career in motor sport, and whose name helped to attract Red Bull support. Both grew up with F1 world champions as family friends – Fernando Alonso in the case of Sainz, and Michael Schumacher for Doohan – who helped to provide some inspiration.

However, both also needed the talent and the determination that allowed them to make it to F1 on merit. These days there is no room for passengers, however famous the surname.

“There’s one way to do it. Hard work, persistence, commitment”

Jack inherited the qualities that helped his father to not only reach the summit of two-wheeled racing but also to stay there while battling through setbacks such as serious injury. “The discipline is 100% different,” says Mick Doohan. “It was the same with Carlos, senior and junior. But the principles are the same. And to achieve something at a high level, there’s only one way to do it. And that’s hard work, persistence, commitment, while also working well with everyone. There’s no other way of doing it. There are always going to be bad days – there are more bad days in sport than there are good days – and you’ve just got to suck them up and learn from them.”

Doohan Sr had long retired from bike racing when Jack was growing up (he was born in 2003). The youngster absorbed his dad’s competitive spirit, even if he took a different direction. “I put a go-kart track at our house in Australia for the big kids – us!” says Mick. “So he was always messing around on things. He did enjoy bikes when he was young. But he got T-boned and broke his leg, around his fifth birthday. So that put him off bikes a little bit. He got well into BMX bicycles, and he loved his rugby union. They played at school, and he was also in a local club. And he liked surfing.”

The karting eventually took over from any other interests. “Michael Schumacher arranged some go-karts for both Jack and his sister when they were young,” says Mick. “He didn’t start racing until he was eight years old. I actually kept him out for a year, just because I knew once you start, you’re not going to stop. So I told him that they’d raised the age!

“He took to it very well, and then I supported him. He was focused and he was enjoying it. He had buddies doing karting as well. Then the rugby started to play second fiddle to karting, and then the next minute we’re running around Australia! He won a couple of back-to-back Australian karting championships in different categories and asked if he won again could he come to Europe? So I agreed to that. And he finished third in the [2017] European Junior Championship.”

Red Bull backing propelled Jack through the car racing ranks: “I planned for him to do another year in karting, but Red Bull pushed him straight into F4, which was a good decision, to be honest. He seemed to adapt fairly quickly considering he’d never driven a car before.”

By 2020 Jack was in FIA F3, struggling through a character-building year with HWA, a team new to the category. He failed to score a point and was classified a lowly 26th. “Always in the early days you don’t know what to do,” says Mick. “Everyone’s telling you to go here, do that, and it’s all last minute. HWA just weren’t ready to perform at that level.”

It was a difficult period, but a move to Trident saw Doohan earn runner-up spot in the 2021 F3 series. “He was quick straight away, and he was battling at the front,” Mick recalls. “Prema clearly still had that edge, but he was the best of the rest. As I say, HWA was a poor decision. And it didn’t really reflect on his ability the way it should have. But it probably helped him to encounter the tough times a little!”

Red Bull liked Doohan, but there was a logjam of drivers. For 2022 he switched to Alpine, seeing a brighter future in the Enstone camp. Initially he played number two to Oscar Piastri, but when that summer his fellow Aussie jumped ship to McLaren, Jack inherited Piastri’s testing and FP1 programmes, and became first in line to be promoted from Alpine’s junior ranks.

Meanwhile he was a pacesetter with Virtuosi in F2 in 2022, although a run of bad luck restricted him to an unrepresentative sixth in the championship. He followed up with third last season, having won three feature races.

For this year he focused on his F1 reserve role, and that proved crucial. Solid work in the Enstone simulator and his private testing with a 2022 car impressed the team, while generally making his presence felt as an enthusiastic and positive force also won him a lot of internal support.

Esteban Ocon’s departure opened a door for 2025, but Alpine joined others in making a bid for Sainz, and Doohan was in the shadows for a while. Sometimes a change of team management sees a young driver fall out of favour, but that wasn’t the case – Renault adviser Flavio Briatore has known Mick Doohan since Schumacher’s Benetton days, while new team principal Oliver Oakes ran Jack at Hitech in Asian F3 in 2019.

The day that Sainz was announced at Williams and was thus off the market, Jack was told that the Alpine drive was his. It was a case of right place, right time.

“Jack was fortunate this year that there was a space available”

“I think that happens throughout all aspects of life really, doesn’t it?,” says Mick. “Clearly, Jack was very fortunate in the way that Oscar didn’t end up being in the team, so that certainly opened up the pathway for him. But still you’ve got to get on with the job, you’ve got to go out and perform, you’ve got to be in front of the right people and be relentless in your pursuit of trying to secure a seat.

“There are only 20 seats at any given point in time. This has been the first year that there’s been so many available seats. It’s unfortunate for many drivers that they never get the chance – some guys coming through are just outside of that window when there are opportunities.

“Jack was very fortunate this year that there was something available, because to do another year as a reserve driver, it then becomes difficult to position yourself.”

Everything has fallen into place. However it’s perhaps not been as straightforward as it might appear from the outside. “He’s gone away from his friends, his family and whatever else at a young age, and has chased a dream,” says Mick. “It’s different than coming from the backyard in Milan, or the backyard in London – you go race on the circuit, and you go home. So there’s a little bit more motivation.

“But he’s also fast. He’s been fast in everything when he’s had the right car, because unfortunately, without a good car, you can’t do too much. And he’s been able to perform, and that’s why he’s been able to get himself to where he is at the moment.”

He might not be able to offer advice specific to driving F1 cars but there’s no doubt that the elder Doohan’s track experience has been of great use to his son. “He’s always been determined in whatever competition he’s been in,” says Mick. “We’ve spent a lot of time together, and so just on the mindset of how to go racing, I’ve tried to push that.

“I didn’t do any four-wheel activities. But the mindset’s the same, how you go about racing, and what you need to be doing, and where you need to be positioning yourself in the way you think about it. It’s the long game that you’ve got to play. Jack has been able to navigate through that minefield fairly easily. And he absorbs things fairly quickly.

“Alpine have seen that he’s been good with the sponsors, good with the team members. He’s been good with the press as well. And it’s all part of the package.”

Now the younger Doohan has to prove that he can do the job. “At the end of the day, let’s not forget, he needs to perform,” says Mick. “He’s my son, so I’m always going to be viewed as the emotional father. But I’m also a pretty critical sort of father. If you’re not doing any good, you’re not doing any good. So let’s not kid ourselves! But the kid can drive…