Jack Doohan’s rookie season in Formula 1 could be over after just six races.
Alpine said Wednesday that Doohan would be replaced with Franco Colapinto after a disappointing start to the season. Doohan collided with Liam Lawson right after the start of the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday and was forced to retire from the race without completing a lap.
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Doohan failed to score a point over the first six races and has an average finish of 16.3 — only Gabriel Bortoleto’s is worse. He also crashed on the opening lap of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and his best finish has been a 13th in China.
Alpine said in its statement that Colapinto would be in the seat for the next five races as it will “rotate” the seat next to Pierre Gasly. The team signed Colapinto in the offseason after he made his F1 debut for Williams in 2024 when he replaced Logan Sargeant.
Colapinto showed speed a season ago but he also showed a tendency to crash. He crashed out in Brazil and Las Vegas but countered those efforts with points in Azerbaijan and at COTA in the United States Grand Prix. His chances of replacing Doohan at some point in 2025 felt decent the moment he signed with the team as there were offseason reports that Doohan’s contract was only guaranteed for the first six races of the season.
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The driver change comes a day after team principal Oliver Oakes abruptly resigned from his post. Longtime F1 team employee Flavio Briatore, hired by the team a less than a year ago, will cover for Oakes as team principal in the interim. Briatore was once banned for life from Formula 1 because of his role in the 2008 Renault scandal that saw Nelson Piquet Jr. crash pneumonia purpose so teammate Fernando Alonso could win.
Alpine has struggled to find consistent pace in recent seasons. Gasly has just one points-scoring finish so far this season and his average finish of 14th so far this season is the worst of his F1 career.
The Doohan-Colapinto swap is also already the second driver change of the young season. Two races into the season, Red Bull moved Yuki Tsunoda to its main team and dropped Lawson down to the RB junior team. Lawson had been promoted to be Max Verstappen’s teammate after he took over for Daniel Ricciardo at RB late in 2024.