Jack Doohan has left the Alpine Formula One team — eight months after he was dropped from its race line-up during the early stages of the 2025 season.
Doohan was replaced by Franco Colapinto just six races into last season, which would have been the Australian drivers’ first full campaign, after he completed the final race of the 2024 season for Alpine in place of the ousted Esteban Ocon.
In a statement released on Tuesday morning, an Alpine spokesperson said the team “confirms it has reached a mutual agreement with Jack Doohan to not continue his driving services with the team for the 2026 FIA Formula One world championship season and allow him to pursue other career opportunities.”
After being dropped in favor of Colapinto, Doohan had continued to work as one of Alpine’s test and reserve drivers — attending several races across the rest of the 2025 campaign.
That season ended with Alpine finishing last of the 10 teams and with just 22 points (McLaren won the 2025 constructors’ title with 833) — all of which were scored by French driver Pierre Gasly.
When Colapinto was installed in Doohan’s place alongside Gasly, Alpine executive advisor Flavio Briatore explained the team’s decision as requiring the Argentine driver to “be fast, not crash, and score points.”
Briatore also quickly contradicted an Alpine statement posted when Doohan was dropped that said Colapinto had only initially been installed for an initial five-race stint as part of a driver rotation system. Colapinto ultimately completed the remaining 18 rounds of the 2025 season but fared little better than Doohan, as he also failed to score a single point.
Colapinto shot to F1 fame with a series of impressive performances after replacing American driver Logan Sergeant at Williams midway through the 2024 season. He will continue as Gasly’s Alpine teammate in the 2026 championship.
Doohan is aiming to compete in the 2026 Super Formula championship — a single-seater series based in Japan that features high-speed, high-powered cars comparable to F1 machines.
But Doohan is yet to be officially confirmed at any team in the championship, which is backed by the major automotive manufacturers Honda and Toyota. He crashed three times at the same corner at the Suzuka track when testing for the Kondo Racing Super Formula team in December.
Doohan had been a part of the Alpine team since 2022, after he left the Red Bull junior program where he had competed in the lower levels of single-seater motorsport between 2017 and 2021.
Doohan failed to score a single point in F1 last season (Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)
He took part in an extensive private F1 testing program with Alpine prior to his Abu Dhabi debut at the very end of the 2024 campaign — a race where he finished 15th. But his position for the 2025 season was almost immediately undermined when Alpine signed Colapinto to initially act as a reserve driver for that campaign in early January 2025.
Colapinto brings significant commercial backing — with several South American sponsors appearing on Alpine’s car in 2025 — and it appeared to be a matter of time before Doohan was replaced.
The move was made after the 2025 Miami Grand Prix, where former Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes also left the squad over a separate matter.
Doohan could look to join another F1 team in 2026 to try and resurrect his grand prix racing career with another series of private tests. But, if he fails to ever get back on the F1 grid, his record will be capped at seven GP starts, with a best finish of 13th — at the 2025 Chinese GP.