Jack Doohan says he is paying no attention to rumours he won’t complete his first full season in Formula 1.
Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko named him the weakest rookie on the F1 grid this year and suggested his Alpine team will drop him before the end of the year.Speaking to Red Bull-owned television channel Servus TV, Marko was invited to grade drivers who are starting their first full seasons this year. Marko, who is responsible for Red Bull’s junior team, rated Doohan the lowest, labelling him a “C driver.”
“I don’t think he’ll complete the full season,” Marko added.
Doohan moved up to Alpine’s race team at the final round of last season, having previously been their reserve driver. However the team’s consultant Flavio Briatore moved quickly to hire Williams’ Franco Colapinto and is thought to prefer him for Doohan’s seat.
“I haven’t been thinking about any of that,” said Doohan in today’s press conference ahead of his home race in Melbourne. “There’s no point thinking about rumours or commenting on them.
“I have a contract for at least this year, if not more. So I look forward to many home grands prix.”
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He pointed out Colapinto is one of four reserve drivers Alpine has appointed for the upcoming season. The team announced Kush Maini as its latest reserve just two days ago, joining Colapinto, Paul Aron and Ryo Hirakawa.
“I have to perform each and every time I’m in the car,” said Doohan. “I have one guy chasing my seat, but we actually have four now, if you didn’t realise, we have four reserves.
“It’s not just Franco who probably wants my seat and if not, Pierre [Gasly]’s as well. And I wanted their seats while I was reserve driver the last two years.
“So I’m going to enjoy, to be honest, every race as if it’s my last, because I want to enjoy each and every moment I’m in the car.”
Marko rated Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Oliver Bearman as ‘A’ and Gabriel Bortoleto as ‘B’, noting the latter won fewer Formula 2 races than Red Bull’s junior driver Isack Hadjar last year.
“He’s a very intelligent driver, won the Formula 3 championship but with only one victory. He always stays out of trouble in the races.
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“Similarly, in Formula 2, he only has two wins. Hadjar has four wins. So, he brings the car to the finish line, his strategy and tyre management is good, but I don’t think he’ll have that absolute final speed.”
Bortoleto beat Hadjar to the title by 22.5 points but Marko said “our simulation guy calculated that he lost 80 points through no fault of his own due to technical defects and the like.”
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Andy (@andycz)
13th March 2025, 9:43
Just leave him alone. He for sure knows what he is doing. Give him some slack!
someone or something
13th March 2025, 9:46
What is it with grown men and the inability not to behave like they’ve been on the playground for too long, with no parents supervising them?
Yesterday it was little Zach with his perfect imitation of a child who stressed his friendship with cool kid Toto to rub it in Christian’s face, because he hates him and it makes him so mad.
And now we have Helmut insulting little Jack, for absolutely no reason. Jack didn’t do anything to him, he isn’t even interested in playing in the part of the playground where Helmut is sitting and throwing stones at pidgeons.
Serriously, it would’ve cost him zero cent to keep his mouth shut. It’s not like he’s necessarily wrong. No offence to Jack Doohan, but the chances of him becoming an established member of the grid are slim. But come on, it’s a young man getting his one and probably only shot at fulfilling his life dream. If he fails, he fails. How small a man do you have to be to kick him before he has even done anything wrong?
PeteB (@peteb)
13th March 2025, 10:02
And whilst all of this is going on, you’ve got the drivers desperate to convince everyone that the other cars are faster than their own. It’s like the polar opposite of any other sport. Imagine it in boxing….
“He’s definitely going to knock me out.”
“Oh no… stop talking nonsense. You’re going to knock me out!”
“Doubt it, you’ll probably beat me inside the first round.”
“Well we don’t know that yet. Training has gone well but I still think there’s a very good chance you’ll be way too strong for me.”
MichaelN
13th March 2025, 10:32
That’s what you get when constant failure is rewarded. Marko had done a great job spending Red Bull’s money. But that’s about it. The paddock press, which largely serves to promote the sport, head been stroking his ego for decades and he had bought into the nonsense said about himself.
In truth, Marko and his junior program have not produced any top level talent in over a decade, with Sainz. Verstappen was never theirs, they just scooped him up. And arguably not even since Vettel almost two decades ago.
asz
13th March 2025, 10:36
The way it can be understood from the article (which, like many others, seamlessly combines different sources and contexts in order to facilitate hot takes), it was not like Marko was walking up to Doohan and telling it to his face out of sheer spite. He was expressing his opinion on a certain topic in a TV programme where he was asked about his opinion on that specific topic.
Mal Ross (@malross)
13th March 2025, 16:30
Some people would have the decency to not be scathing and to understand the harm their [publicly spoken] words can do. Helmut Marko, on the other hand, is… someone who’s got me checking the commenting policy here to be clear on what I can and can’t say about him. Suffice it to say, I don’t like the way he conducts himself.
Markp
13th March 2025, 21:17
Marko more than most should know it’s not nice to throw stones.
S Arkazam
13th March 2025, 21:19
(only based on reading this article) Marko rated current F1 drivers as requested by the interviewer.
He even seemed to have given some reasoning for his ratings.
What’s wrong with that? Pundits do it all the time.
And we are not talking about grammer school children here either.
PS I don’t like the way it is headlined and brought in this article though, but I guess that is required nowadays to get the interaction and comments.
I would’ve preferred a listing of all drivers, their ratings and a major observation. Not as catchy, but much more meaning- and insightful.
Sonny Crockett (@sonnycrockett)
13th March 2025, 10:05
I hope Doohan outperforms the Alpine and everyone, especially Marko, has to eat a huge slice of humble pie.
Poor lad. I’m rooting for him now!
MichaelN
13th March 2025, 10:35
These types will just say that their comments pushed him to be better. There’s no arguing with them. They will never admit to any mistakes, nor will they ever apologise for their bluster.
Frank
13th March 2025, 12:48
Exactly this.
Some journalists suffer from the same condition btw, rousing popular opinion against or in favour of some decisions without ever needing to take accountability for what inevitably turns out to be their lack of detailed insight.
Mal Ross (@malross)
13th March 2025, 16:31
+1 to that. The Alpine looks reasonable this year too, so I hope he gets some decent results.
Carl Parker (@mysticarl)
13th March 2025, 10:34
Can people please stop listening to Marko on anyone other than his own drivers? Please?
PeteB (@peteb)
13th March 2025, 10:51
No, they can’t. Sites like this one are desperate to report what he says because lots of people will get really angry about it and then they’ll take time out of their day to type how much they dislike Marko and what an awful person he is… If articles aren’t of interest to people, they won’t click on them but that’s not the case here.
You can write an article about 99% of the people in F1 and it won’t generate the clicks a Marko article does.
El Pollo Loco
13th March 2025, 14:39
And then posting articles like “Is All The Media Speculation Fair To Doohan” or if they’re a little bit more self-aware, “Is XYZ Hurting So & So?”
El Pollo Loco
13th March 2025, 14:41
PS – But don’t worry, we all know who they’ll blame if things don’t work out for Jack.
Edvaldo
13th March 2025, 10:47
Can’t Marko leave already? What an unbearable freak.
El Pollo Loco
13th March 2025, 13:38
Am I the only one who just half-glanced at the headline and for a millisecond thought Marko had called him a “c-word driver”? That woke me up and this time I read.
Anyway, what business of Marko’s is it? Why go out of his way to be a jerk and undermine a driver? Marko’s a tool, but the vast majority of the blame does not belong to him or even Briatore. It belongs to the media for incessantly asking the same question over and over. For the time, I watch unedited footage of driver questions during pre-season and you’d see sometimes 15+ journos ask Jack the same question either verbatim or slightly reworded.
Jack needs a PR/media assistant who does job of cutting off journos who insist on asking a question he’s already answered and says he won’t answer again. Maybe this is already happening. I don’t know. I haven’t seen an unedited Q&A with him recently..
Chris Horton
13th March 2025, 10:54
Marko is intensely dislikable.
Good luck Jack. Go well.
Peter707
13th March 2025, 10:57
As for Doohan, Marko just reiterated what everyone says.
What is more interesting that he gave “B” for someone who beat their own talent in his first F2 season. Not many credibility of labelling Hadjar an “A” then.
El Pollo Loco
13th March 2025, 13:43
Funnier yet is that his two most famous drivers weren’t even Red Bull juniors or discovered let alone developed by him. Ricciardo (and maybe Sainz – not sure if he was actually a long time member of their program) is the only star that actually came through the academy. If I were Jack I’d rap back “Marko’s track record speaks for itself: 1 for 35. As a letter grade, that’d make him an F-list talent scout.”
SteveP
13th March 2025, 16:24
Actually, I think you may have run out of alphabet and run along the top row of the keyboard to “(” – but I can see your point.
Patrick (@paeschli)
13th March 2025, 21:02
Marko had s an eye for talent. He was so confident Max was the next superstar that he gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Who is the smartest? Mercedes who discovered Max talent the earliest or Red Bull who actually put him inside a Formula One car?
El Pollo Loco
14th March 2025, 1:01
Mercedes didn’t have a junior team they could stick him in. Sort of a gigantic difference.
Adam (@rocketpanda)
13th March 2025, 12:05
I do feel bad for Doohan, everyone seems to think his F1 career is over before it began. I tend to think Alpine would like Colapinto in the car over him. If it’s truly performance that will keep him in that car I hope he is good enough to give them a headache.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
13th March 2025, 12:16
Wow super ugly comments before he’s turned a wheel in anger. I hope he makes both of those 2 very old men eat their words, they will taste very bitter swallowing them again.
SteveP
13th March 2025, 16:25
I guess you missed the last race of 2024. (Nitpick)
N
13th March 2025, 12:44
doohan might be a C-Driver but marko is a C-Word
Snowy (@snowy666)
14th March 2025, 9:55
I came here to post this :)
Dex
13th March 2025, 12:57
Imagine if guys like Marko had to actually compete themselves. What is that guy good at anyway? Someone mentioned Zack Brown, Horner and Toto. They had all failed as drivers. On the other hand, we know that they are actually good at something (arguably more important skills in life than driving fast). Marko is a mystery… Seems to be one of those guys who advance within companies for unknown reasons, sucking up to someone usually being the cause.
All I know is that he does a terrible job for his F1 team, and that is clear as day. But it’s not like he’s got competition for his job, so he’s fine being D class and giving “wise” statements to the media. As far as I can tell, he’s RB’s weakest link.
Thanks to him they have Lawson in the second seat (and it could be even worse), as opposed to Hamilton, Piastri and Antonelli.
Gubstar
13th March 2025, 14:13
Not that I am a fan of Helmut at all, not one bit, but he was an F1 driver in the 60’s until the stone got flicked up by the car in front and went through his visor and eye at the Charade circuit for the French GP. So he has actually competed so in a way he does have a right to have an opinion on this subject, its just his opinion nowadays is so wide of the marko ;-)
Doggy
13th March 2025, 13:12
Dr Marko maybe just maybe “…If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”
Thumper the rabbit
Aleksandar
13th March 2025, 14:37
We need more of people speaking their mind, not less. Thank you for the grading Helmut.
A little disappointed with Jack’s response, thought he would have more confidence than to just concede that “he has a contract and will enjoy the race as if it was his last”.
Laughing at the commenters here that are wishing for a bland, politically correct drivel.
Edvaldo
13th March 2025, 14:49
There’s nothing “politically incorrect” about this.
Marko is part of a team that has replaced many drivers mid-season as well, so what does he know?
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
13th March 2025, 19:44
+1
People have a tendency to shame or shut down opinions they don’t like. Someone who speaks his mind is a breath of fresh air.
Edvaldo
13th March 2025, 20:08
What you call breath of fresh air i call senile man kicking a boy while he’s down.
From the moment Alpine signed Colapinto, he’s expected to take the seat sooner or later, so nothing new there.
It doesn’t mean people should talk down on Doohan, or ruin his home Grand Prix because truth must be told at all costs. Let him have his go and show if he belongs there before counting him out.
The only reason people are not talking similar stuff about Marko’s Liam Lawson is because they have no one to replace him with, they burned everybody already.
Patrick (@paeschli)
13th March 2025, 21:05
Can’t wait for Flávio Briatore to put Doohan down in DTS just like he did with Ocon. The latest season already proved that Flávio can put his drivers down whether the results are good or bad.
I couldn’t stop laughing when he kept hammering home that Ocon was mentally checked out, didn’t have the fighting spirit anymore and was already thinking about next season… only for Ocon to bag home the teams best result of the year.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
13th March 2025, 14:49
I think this comment thread says enough about what people think of Dr Marko, and that there is seemingly a building fanbase behind Jack just to prove him wrong.
I have no idea how much Red Bull have spent on the young drivers programme in the last couple of decades, but really it’s (probably) only Seb and Max that have been a great investment. I’m pretty sure both of them would have risen to the top regardless of Helmut.
Considering his job is selecting talent, sometimes I think he’d be better off predicting lottery numbers, if his hit rate is 2%, I’m not sure how he commands a salary.
MichaelN
13th March 2025, 15:09
That’s the thing. While Red Bull has brought, or helped, numerous drivers, the success rate for actual standout talent is rather poor. And Verstappen was not even a proper junior driver of theirs, they just offered him a seat first. And that was only possible because Marko had stuffed both Red Bull teams full of mediocre drivers, Ricciardo in his form back then excepted.
For someone with so little success in his own job, it’s poor form to go around mocking rookies.
Patrick (@paeschli)
13th March 2025, 21:07
Eight driver world championship titles is actually an amazing success rate if you ask me…
tielemst
13th March 2025, 14:59
These kind of comments make Marko sound more and more as Bernie.
Spencer (@spencer)
13th March 2025, 16:05
Suggesting Marko has been anything other than the largest driving force for young and aspiring F1 drivers is utterly preposterous. At various points in the past few years nearly half the grid were connected to the RB Driver program, not to mention the successes that drivers have had in other disciplines after leaving F1. He’s direct and at times unlikeable, but his personal traits do not change facts. No other junior program past or present has gotten more drivers involved in single seaters and graduated them successfully to F1. I understand that they have an additional two seats for placement, but it was Marko who made the call and the push to purchase Minardi for that very purpose.
Patrick (@paeschli)
13th March 2025, 21:09
Even this year we have 30% of the drivers on the grid that came through the Red Bull programme (Verstappen, Lawson, Tsunoda, Hadjar, Sainz, Albon).
Mig29smt
13th March 2025, 17:10
marko is just a sad old fart. Anyway they signed doohan way too soon ,let’s see if he is up to the task before talking.
jmlabareda
13th March 2025, 18:18
Helmut Marko is a C person, and I am being nice.
Chris (@austin-healey)
13th March 2025, 20:39
The fact that Yuki is entering his 5th year in the RB junior team sums up Helmut. Helmut has been resting on signing Max for years.
I heard Helmut likes fresh eggs.
Hope he gets some in Melbourne!
😀
praxis (@praxis)
14th March 2025, 2:43
That was unnecessarily mean/rude of Marko, wasn’t it? He could’ve chosen much nicer words to convey his opinion about Doohan.
baasbas
14th March 2025, 8:12
Ok, hold up.. let’s zoom out for a second.
Send a reporter to a guy with experience in working with young talent.
Ask him to rate a bunch of youngsters.
He is kind enough to share his opinions.
Cherry pick any of those ratings in a disturbing headline.
Comment section: saw him off at the knee
Really? The article could be named: Marko is asked to rank the rookies. And none of this ‘crucifixion by comment section’ would have happened. The way the article is constructed is to provoke reaction. Just the same as tabloids do. And almost everybody fell for it. Calling him a bad person and worse, for answering a question about his opinion. No really, this comment section is full of ‘bad persons’. You can disagree with his rating, but come on, almost everyone here got riled up. How easy it is to influence a group of people by just simple manipulation of ‘news’.
Edvaldo
14th March 2025, 14:51
A lot of “A-drivers” won F-3000, GP2, F2, then got to F1 and didn’t achieve anything, were gone after disappointing performances.
Let the guy drive. Even if chances are against him, you don’t know. To say he’ll be out before the end of the season is the easiest answer you can give, as they hired Colapinto to secure him from signing with somebody else, and only didn’t put him to drive already because they signed Doohan for the seat first.
Combine that with all the crap Marko already said in the past and i see no reason at all to symphatize with him.