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After losing his Alpine seat to Franco Colapinto just six races into the 2025 F1 season, Jack Doohan became a more and more distant figure in the paddock.
Alpine had no plans for Jack Doohan to return despite Colapinto’s pointless season, and they eventually parted ways in January to allow the Australian driver to pursue other racing opportunities.
It looked like Super Formula was calling for Doohan, but he missed out on a seat, not helped by three crashes at the same corner at Suzuka during a series of testing days.
Jack Doohan has a new F1 team 👀 does he deserve another shot in F1 with Haas?
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However, the 23-year-old has now been signed by Haas as a reserve driver for the 2026 season alongside Ryo Hirakawa.
The goal will eventually be for Doohan to return to the F1 grid, and team principal Ayao Komatsu’s latest comments on current driver Esteban Ocon might give the Australian all the motivation he needs to push for that race seat.
READ MORE: Who is Jack Doohan? All you need to know, including his MotoGP icon dad
Ayao Komatsu’s underwhelming Esteban Ocon comments might give Jack Doohan an F1 opportunity
Komatsu was speaking about Ocon to Motorsport Italia and his first season with the team after leaving Alpine.
He said: “If you look purely at the sporting result, without going into the details, certainly no one is satisfied with Esteban’s sporting result last year.
“He was the teammate of a rookie. Yes, an extraordinary rookie, but he still has 10 years of F1 behind him. He’s a race winner, he’s been on the podium. So we expected more from him.
“And obviously it’s not entirely his fault, it’s a 50-50 situation. Sometimes it’s the team: we weren’t able to give him a car he felt comfortable with, especially in qualifying.
“And then on some circuits this was much more pronounced than on others. Look at Baku: he wasn’t at all happy with certain braking performances, and then he was way off on qualifying pace.
“Yes, Baku was one of Ollie’s strongest circuits, but we didn’t expect Esteban’s worst day to be so far away.
“But again, there’s no single reason; it’s not just the driver, it’s not just the team, and every situation is different. So there’s no underlying common factor, there’s no ‘silver bullet’; it’s simply a process, the way we work together to get to the bottom of things much faster and then implement solutions for the next race.
“And that’s exactly the part where I feel like we – all together, team and driver – didn’t do a good job last year, because I really had the feeling that we should have resolved the situation much earlier.”
READ MORE: Haas driver Esteban Ocon’s life outside F1 from net worth to girlfriend
The 2026 F1 season must be Esteban Ocon’s turning point after Abu Dhabi comments
Ocon finished 15th in the 2025 F1 drivers’ championship, two positions and three points behind Oliver Bearman.
Considering he was up against a rookie last year, it’s not a good look, and he was the only driver who spent a full season alongside a new driver and didn’t finish above them in the standings, with Liam Lawson being saved by his two-race stint at Red Bull.
More worryingly, Ocon only managed to score points in five of the last 13 race weekends, and he will know that carrying that lack of form into 2026 could easily open up an opportunity for Haas to replace him with Doohan.
Ocon wasn’t happy with the Haas car at the end of the campaign, and in an official media interview in Abu Dhabi, he said: “There’s a lot of instability.
“I feel like I don’t know how to drive anymore, like I can’t put a lap together. It’s been unmanageable for many races.
“We can’t solve the problems, and the car doesn’t suit my driving style, so… we’re just slow. We’re very, very far from where we should be.”
Ocon could be one of F1’s most at-risk drivers this season, and Komatsu might have the perfect replacement already lined up.
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