Alpine have promoted Jack Doohan from their academy to serve as the team’s reserve driver this season, with the Australian replacing young Oscar Piastri who made a controversial move to join McLaren.
Doohan’s promotion was the most logical move for Alpine to make, as the Australian is clearly the most talented and race ready driver in the Alpine academy.
The team will be hoping that Doohan’s progress in the reserve driver role serves him well for the future, as he looks to become the first Alpine academy driver to make the step up into a race seat with the team.
Last season’s reserve driver Oscar Piastri was in line to replace Fernando Alonso this season but controversially rejected the chance to drive for the team in favour of a move to replace Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren.
Jack Doohan has now been given a public show of support by Esteban Ocon, with the Frenchman claiming that there was no better candidate to be Alpine’s reserve driver this year.
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“I think we obviously can’t be in a better place with having Jack,” he told Speedcadfe.com.
“He’s obviously the most experienced guy in the academy, which makes sense for the team to have him as reserve.
“He’s been performing super well in Formula 2 last year and he’s driven the [F1] car quite a bit in the past and has been with the team quite a lot, on [the] simulator.
“I’m hoping we won’t need him but for the team [it] is probably a very good thing.”
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Alpine will be hoping that their pre-season results do not reflect their 2023 season as a whole, as the team struggled tremendously compared to their rivals.
The French outfit looked to be one of the slowest teams on the grid during pre-season testing in Bahrain, however this could be down to the types of tests they were running with regards to tyre compounds and fuel loads.
With Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon in the A523, Alpine have a driver pairing more than capable of standing on the podium this season, should they be given a competitive car.