DRS “misjudgement” from Doohan caused F1 Japanese GP practice crash

Alpine driver Jack Doohan has said he was “caught by surprise” by his heavy crash in Formula 1’s Japanese Grand Prix second practice, with team boss Oliver Oakes labelling it a “misjudgement”.

The rookie spun off entering the high-speed Turn 1 in the opening stages of the one-hour session, smashing heavily into the barriers. Due to the severity of the impact, Doohan was checked at the medical centre, but the Australian escaped injury.

Doohan’s crash was caused by him entering Turn 1 without manually closing his DRS mechanism, which meant he turned into the flat-out section with his rear wing still open. That aerodynamical imbalance caused his Alpine to spin as soon as he turned into the corner.

The DRS overtaking device is deactivated automatically as soon as a driver hits the brakes, which wasn’t the case in that particular corner.

“We are all relieved to see Jack walk away from his incident in free practice two and glad to see he is OK after his precautionary checks,” Oakes said.

“It was a misjudgement of not closing the DRS into Turn 1. It is something to learn from and I know Jack and the team will be ready for tomorrow. His crew will work hard to have the car prepared after the damage.”

Jack Doohan, Alpine

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Doohan said the incident caught him off guard. “It was a heavy one, something that caught me by surprise, and I will learn from it,” he stated.

“I know the team has a lot of work ahead to repair the car going into tomorrow, so thanks in advance to them for their efforts. My focus is on tomorrow where we will have free practice three to get ready for qualifying.”

Doohan had ceded his spot in FP1 to Alpine test driver Ryo Hirakawa, meaning the 22-year-old heads into Saturday with just four laps of Suzuka under his belt.

In the other car, Pierre Gasly tentatively appeared to confirm Alpine’s place in the pecking order in the middle of the pack, fighting with the likes of Williams and Aston Martin.

“From a performance point of view today, there are some things for us to work on,” Oakes explained.

“Pierre had a good run in free practice two, which bodes well for tomorrow, as did Ryo, who did a great job to run through the programme this morning. We tried some set-up options between cars and we have a good direction to go in ahead of qualifying.”