“I have to get the team in the right condition to get results and the driver is the one who has to conclude the work of nearly 1,000 people behind him. Everyone works for just two people.
“If there’s a driver who isn’t making progress, who isn’t bringing me results, I change him. You can’t be emotional in F1.”
There’s certainly a sound logic to that. But it seems to be making a pre-assumption that Doohan won’t be up to the task – and that Colapinto will. It’s really not that straightforward. Firstly, their performances are not that different despite perceptions to the contrary. Secondly, the commercial imperatives will probably be decisive.
Currently, Franco’s perceived level is higher than Doohan’s on account of those eye-catching Williams races. By contrast, Doohan is perceived not have delivered in his only grand prix to date, at Abu Dhabi.
Doohan had a mediocre debut in Abu Dhabi — but it wasn’t all in his hands
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Digging into the detail of Doohan’s weekend there, it’s very different to how it looks at a surface glance, with Gasly making Q3 and Doohan going out in Q1. This was all about timing and Doohan’s disastrous position in the pitlane queue for the second Q1 runs as the track grip ramped up. On his first run he’d been P12, 0.1sec behind Gasly, who was P10. That 0.1sec difference tallied with their respective runs on soft tyres in FP2 the previous day. But with the track getting ever-faster, the seconds were ticking down as Doohan found himself in horrific traffic on the out-lap of his second run. Giving himself a gap to the car in front meant he started the lap with his tyres still under-temperature. He was visibly down on grip for the first few corners. From the T5 chicane to the end of the lap, he was as quick as Gasly but those slow opening few corners on cold tyres had cost him the 0.45sec he trailed his team-mate by, the difference between getting through and not. It was not a representative showing.
It was actually remarkably similar to Colapinto’s debut at Monza. Caught out by the timing of yellow flags, he failed to make it out of Q1, with team-mate Alex Albon 0.5sec quicker and making it through to Q3. But that was largely wiped from memory by Franco’s sparkling performance in Baku, where he made Q3 and qualified one place ahead of Albon. This is where the perception took hold that Colapinto had instantly matched Albon. He hadn’t. Albon’s sole new tyre run was destroyed by his airbox coming loose as he took to the track. The 0.5sec difference between them represented Albon’s old-tyred first run vs Colapinto’s new-tyred second run.
That’s to take nothing away from Colapinto’s great run into the points (behind Albon) on race day. In Singapore they were running different car specifications and neither got out of Q1, each beset by several problems. In Austin they qualified on the same tenth (Albon ahead). This was the first time Colapinto had cleanly and clearly matched Albon’s pace. In both Mexico and Brazil Albon was 0.4sec faster – and Colapinto’s crashes had cooled the earlier enthusiasm of Red Bull. For the remainder of the year they were again on different car specs (because of the parts shortage) so a fair comparison couldn’t be made.
Albon leads Colapinto in Sao Paulo
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Given the opportunities they were given as rookies, both Colapinto and Doohan did enough to suggest they could have an F1 future. But Colapinto’s opportunities were greater, with more races in which to make an impression. Does anyone recall how his debut was much the same as Doohan’s? Maybe Colapinto’s potential will turn out to be greater, maybe not.
But Doohan’s task could hardly be clearer in these first few races. Maybe his destiny has already been decided but he cannot let that influence his approach.