Australian driver Jack Doohan endured a deeply disappointing start to his new racing chapter in Super Formula, crashing at the *same spot on the track on two consecutive days during a post-season test — a surreal echo of misfortune that has compounded an already difficult year in Formula 1.
At just 22 years old, Doohan’s motorsport career trajectory has taken a notably turbulent turn. After beginning 2025 as a rookie Formula 1 driver with the Alpine team, he was dropped just six races into the season. Alpine opted to replace him with Franco Colapinto, who finished out the remainder of the year — though Colapinto himself failed to score points with the team through the remaining 18 races.
Although Doohan remained with Alpine as a test and reserve driver for the rest of the season, opportunities to actually drive were scarce. Under rules requiring teams to offer organized practice sessions to rookie drivers, Alpine chose Paul Aron as their practice session driver instead, leaving Doohan on the sidelines. Team managing director Steve Nielsen publicly confirmed that only Aron and Colapinto were under serious consideration for a full-time 2026 race seat, effectively shutting the door on Doohan’s immediate F1 comeback.
With his Formula 1 future uncertain, Doohan looked for ways to stay sharp and maintain competitive momentum. One of those paths was a foray into Super Formula, Japan’s premier open-wheel category and a respected benchmark for drivers who aspire to maintain elite status outside F1. In what was billed as a three-day post-season test with the Kondo Racing team, Doohan arrived at Italy’s legendary Mugello Circuit to get seat time and gather data with his new machinery.
However, the testing session quickly became a nightmare. On the first day, Doohan lost control of his Super Formula car and spun into the barriers. The impact was hard enough to damage the rear of the chassis and bring work to a halt, though the Australian was uninjured.
Exactly 24 hours later, almost unbelievably, he crashed at the very same corner, though this time he hit the barriers nose-first and caused damage to the front end of the car. The coincidence was striking and underscored just how difficult the learning process has been as he adapts to new machinery and a different racing environment.
According to reports from Spanish and Latin American outlets covering motorsport, Doohan’s two Super Formula incidents occurred at the Degner curve — a series of high-speed corners that are notorious even among seasoned racers. On Wednesday, the car’s rear end stepped out, sending him into the barrier sideways. On Thursday, he simply ran wide and struck the wall head-on. On both occasions, he was able to walk away and escape serious injury, though the crashes further dented confidence as he attempts to salvage competitive momentum.
Doohan’s performance in these tests was also reflected in the timing sheets. In one session, he was running well outside the top half of the field, placing 18th, just behind some other rookies and significantly slower than the leaders. Drivers such as Tadasuke Makino, Sho Tsuboi, and Nirei Fukuzumi set much quicker laps, with Doohan’s misfortune notably affecting his pace and data gathering.
This string of crashes comes against the backdrop of a season that was already hampered by tough moments in F1. Earlier in 2025, while racing for Alpine, Doohan had encountered multiple on-track incidents, including being issued penalty points on his Super Licence for collisions in the Chinese Grand Prix weekend — both in the sprint and feature races — which contributed to a challenging reputation among rookies.
Perhaps most notably, during the Japanese Grand Prix weekend at Suzuka earlier in the year, Doohan suffered a major high-speed crash in free practice when he failed to deactivate the Drag Reduction System (DRS) while entering Turn 1. Because the entrance to that corner is taken at speed with minimal braking, the car lacked sufficient downforce, spun, and violently hit the barriers at nearly 300 km/h. Despite the severity of the impact, Doohan walked away and was medically cleared, but the accident typified some of the harsh learning curves he faced throughout the season.
All of this has played into an ongoing debate around Doohan’s readiness and prospects. With Alpine committing to a new driver lineup for 2026 — and Doohan not among those chosen — many observers have questioned whether he might be better served by switching focus to another championship where he can rebuild confidence and demonstrate racecraft. Super Formula, with its competitive field and technical cars, is one such stage that has helped other drivers regain prominence and even return to F1 contention.
Despite the setbacks, Doohan is still under contract with Alpine through the end of 2026 and has held onto the Super Formula test as a potential springboard. Sources close to the situation have even suggested he’s looking into options to end his Alpine contract prematurely — possibly in search of a fresh start — and he and his team have also recently changed management.
As things stand, Doohan’s immediate future in top-level motorsports is unclear. Unless he can put together a strong Super Formula campaign in 2026 — much like New Zealand’s Liam Lawson did in 2023, using success there as a springboard back into the global spotlight — he may find his path back to a full-time F1 race seat blocked for some time.
In summary, what began as a promising, if challenging, rookie F1 season has led to a year of recalibration for Doohan — marked now by back-to-back crashes at the same corner in Super Formula testing. Each incident has delivered lessons, but also raised questions about resilience, adaptation, and the very nature of competitive momentum in the upper echelons of open-wheel racing.
