Schumacher disappointed by Alpine: Doohan announcement discovered on social media

On paper, the German was in the running

The official announcement regarding the promotion of Jack Doohan as Alpine’s full-time driver in 2025 alongside Pierre Gasly. The Australian was part of Red Bull’s youth program from 2017 to 2021 and then moved to the Alpine academy. In 2024 he decided to spend the season on the bench after two years in F2 and the evolution of the driver market rewarded him because the French team found itself with a free seat and without the possibility of signing high-caliber drivers, the choice fell on Doohan.

Doohan has already worked with the team principal Oliver Oakes in 2019 when the Australian was part of the Oakes-run Hitech team. Doohan finished runner-up in the Asian F3 championship that season, then finished second in F3 in 2021 and third in F2 in 2023.

As reported by Sky Germanyhowever, Mick Schumacher did not hide his natural disappointment at discovering that Alpine had decided to focus on Doohan only on social media once the announcement was made official. Schumacher, in fact, races with Alpine in the WEC Hypercar programme and took part in a test that could also have been a ‘play-off’ between him and Doohan given that both drivers drove an Alpine F1 car on the same day at Paul Ricard. Alpine chose Doohan and Schumacher only found out last Friday when the news became public. Toto Wolff also criticised Alpine’s lack of tact: “Every team chooses how to communicate its choices internally, but we would have acted differently,” said the Mercedes team principal.