Renault

Different Saturday for Jack with some track time under wets where nothing much happened in the 2nd sprint when Alpine let him down following a frustrating Friday but another Q2 run puts him in 14th tomorrow just four places ahead of Pierre Gasly.

While it’s not bad news, Pierre did get a single point also from the sprint over in 8th (was originally 11th) earlier in the day. 

Here’s hoping Jack can stay on track consistently & finish that race strong with his game day performance in F1 terms for tomorrow’s 57-lap race – as long as the staff get his strategy right and him not crashing out & avoiding penalties.

He has to be spot on so Jack can be there & stay inside the Top 10 points zone.

1-2 days ago, Ralf Schumacher has revealed on his podcast with a renowned racing journalist together from Germany that Jack Doohan does have his own sponsorship to the table after all.

Wondering which sponsor could that be? Don’t know if one is listed somewhere on the Alpine F1’s list of sponsors page on their website or would probably assume it’s Jetcraft where his dad Mick runs the business even though Jetcraft does not appear on the A525 cars at all.

That really helps when it comes to his future at Alpine nonetheless as just hoping he can really get these good results as soon as Formula 1 is back next weekend in Miami after a long three-week doubleheader of Japan, Bahrain & Saudi.

It’s about time Jack proves others wrong including Ralf where he was almost at the thick of it in 9th at the time at the Bahrain GP two weeks ago until a safety car ruined everything while his last weekend’s run in Saudi was ruined by poor strategy and tire management. 

So while the team do really need to help him out in order to finish races strong, Jack has to be the one delivering as still a long way to go – especially with the European rounds set to kick off after Miami next month.

And just want to point out that Ralf’s brother Michael is family friends with Jack’s legendary MotoGP dad Mick btw.

He can say whatever he wants/likes but yeah, Jack is coming after you Ralf.

Looks like Jack Doohan will be given more chances now in that Renault-powered Alpine A525, so good news there following a huge past few days – especially with the European leg set to start later next month.

What he has to do now is finish those next races strong where he has to stay there the whole way through like he did for 2/3rds of last week’s Bahrain round.

Although his engineers do need to be in sync but at the end of the day, Jack is the one responsible to post results and needs to turn up there without any risk of punishing penalties in each and every post-race right after the checkered flag.

Hope he can reach that next elusive step as long as he knows what to do including tire management (very crucial!) and how he can get out of these tricky situations every time the safety car comes around and not crash considering the next two rounds are also tricky street circuits too.

Top 7-8 along with more decent qualifying runs is the go from here….

F1 continues for another round, another consecutive weekend out of three this week in Sakhir, Bahrain, where all ten teams and 20 drivers were there two months ago with pre-season testing.

Hopefully this serves a good opportunity for Jack to come back better with four races under his belt as we always know he’s good with raw pace over one lap.

But there’s a few other things in mind he must fix in order to fight for points ASAP:

His cornering which scares me at times where Pierre is clearly better than him in that area – can’t see him slipping up a bit time and again when one little mistake can blow things up from there in an instant.

Okay, he’s great defensively with his defensive driving but must not commit those ill-disciplines like running people off the track like he did in China despite luck going his way in the end in 13th place.

And he must not make any more silly mistakes please! Yes, his Lap 1 crash back in Albert Park was the one where he only raced wets in an F1 for the very first time.

Also yes, his freak Suzuka crash at high speed going into Turn 1 in the afternoon practice session on Friday has divided opinion too, which took the whole overnight to get that A525 majorly repaired. Although he handled it brilliantly even with injured ribs through the very end from Saturday qualifying to Sunday race.

However, he must know that simulator work and real track work are two different things. So better err on the side of caution by sticking with the real track work where you must close DRS by yourself before you hit the breaks on the next corner.

If he can fix those three real-life mistakes, then we could see the very best of Jack after all from here – that’s what I want to see if Jack is reading this here, right now.

Don’t forget Alpine is still the only team out there without points so far in 2025, so Jack can be the first person to meet that target if he can really improve past with my three huge concerns as said above.

And Top 7-8 will do it…over to you Jack.