Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes has explained the team’s unusually large roster of reserve drivers.
Ahead of this weekend’s opening Formula 1 round in Australia, Alpine named Kush Maini as its fourth reserve driver for the 2025 season. He joins Paul Aron, Ryo Hirakawa and Franco Colapinto who were announced previously.Oakes said the team is anticipating developments in the driver market. He noted McLaren’s recent decision to re-sign Oscar Piastri, whom the world champions controversially poached from Alpine three years ago when he was a member of their junior driver programme.
“Obviously we had Paul already in the wings and I think the option with Franco that appeared there, that’s sort of with an eye to the future as well,” Oakes told Sky. “I think we’ve just seen it recently of McLaren tying down Oscar, the driver market is going to change and for us, we wanted to have options further down the line.”
“Obviously we’ve got Franco there with a big following. Paul’s done a phenomenal job in F2 and he has been quick as well, jumping in the car testing. But I think that’s a nice option to have for the team.
“We need those reserve drivers. It’s a big programme with the TPC [testing of previous cars] testing, the simulator. Obviously as a race driver, you’d love to probably not have someone clipping at your heels. But also from our side, you know, we’ve been pretty open that Jack and Pierre [Gasly] both have our full support.”
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However Oakes admitted the team’s decision to hire so many reserve drivers had added to the speculation over Doohan.
“I think I was probably a little bit too supportive, maybe, saying people should just give him a bit of a break,” he said. “We put him in that situation by having a few reserve drivers, but that gave us options as a team.
“But he did a good job in Bahrain. He’s been very good here out of the blocks. And I think you can see he’s getting a bit of confidence because it isn’t easy for the rookies. We saw then on track that, you know, a couple of early mistakes can put you on the back foot.”
Speaking after final practice, Oakes said he was pleased with Doohan’s progress so far this year.
“We just said to him, keep your head down, also enjoy yourself, because at the end of the day, that opening weekend, everything’s going to come at you pretty fast,” he explained.
“But he’s just done a very, very solid start and that’s what you want to see. You want to see a young driver building up to it, doing the basics right. He’s done a good job against Pierre so far and you can only gauge yourself [against] your team mate.”
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El Pollo Loco
15th March 2025, 3:40
Not four. One. Only one is actually there to slot into the race seat. The rest have basically purchased some glitter for their CV. But it’s good to get an update on the situation.
Jack looking pretty good so far. If he manages to be pretty close to Gasly, he’ll make it much more difficult in terms of fan and media reaction to swap him out. If he doesn’t, it’ll be hard to argue with the logic of swapping FC in.
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
15th March 2025, 3:48
I’d also take into account how Albon compares to Sainz as a factor to measure Colapinto, which could put pressure on Doohan.
El Pollo Loco
15th March 2025, 5:00
Albon looking better so far than anticipated.
Applebook
15th March 2025, 6:22
I wouldn’t hand Albon any awards yet. Sainz is in his first race with a brand new team in a brand new car. We’ll see by midseason where it shakes out.
El Pollo Loco
15th March 2025, 11:53
Hence the “so far..”
Jere (@jerejj)
15th March 2025, 4:26
El Pollo Loco Indeed only Colapinto in the end.
bookgrub (@bookgrub)
15th March 2025, 8:06
Nothing more alarming in sport than hearing you have the boss’s “full support”. Inevitably said of every coach, manager, and struggling star right up until they get the boot.
Love to see Doohan put in a few strong races, let them be dismissive of questions about his position instead of giving him their ‘full support’.
Elvira
15th March 2025, 12:20
They can have 89 unblooded reserve drivers behind Colapinto and nothing changes for Doohan here, he needs to show par performance while not wrecking cars – day 1 is a pass. These stories were tedious months ago.
Elvira
16th March 2025, 4:36
– day 2 fail