The convicted criminal who dropped the axe on Aussie Jack Doohan’s Formula One dream
Jack Doohan’s F1 career is over after six races of the 2025 season. And the man sharpening the blade has a colourful history.
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Sacked by the most notorious man in Formula One, who also happens to be his own manager, Jack Doohan’s F1 career is over and it has exposed the sheer brutality of the most exclusive sport in the world and the reality of life when there are just 20 jobs in your industry.
Doohan was told on Sunday after he crashed out of the Miami Grand Prix that his time as Alpine’s second driver was over and he would be replaced for the Imola Grand Prix next weekend.
Sky Sports pitlane expert Ted Kravitz spotted Doohan being consoled by his father, former motorbike world champion Mick Doohan, after the race as word began leaking out that Alpine had finally made the call that had been rumoured ever since the team signed Franco Colapinto as a reserve driver in the off-season.
It was a brutal call after just six races this season, but in reality Doohan has lived every moment of his short F1 career with the guillotine above his head.
And the man sharpening the blade was his own personal manager Flavio Briatore – the Italian business adviser to Alpine racing who fathered a child with supermodel Heidi Klum, an accused cheat and convicted criminal who was once handed a lifetime ban from F1 only for a French court to overrule.
Brought back to Alpine in 2024 to help the French outfit climb up the constructors’ title rankings, he is the puppeteer pulling all the strings behind the scenes.
And as Briatore told Doohan in a meeting shown on the Netflix Drive to Survive series: “I control you. Every millimetre.”
Why was Doohan sacked?
After five races Doohan remains just one of four drivers – Fernando Alonso, Liam Lawson and Gabriel Bortoleto the others – yet to secure a single point with his best result a 13th in China.
In Melbourne and last weekend in Miami, he crashed out on the first lap.
In Japan, he suffered a high-speed crash in practice after attempting to take a corner with DRS open reportedly because it worked on the simulator back at the factory.
In five events, he only unqualified his teammate Pierre Gasly once – that was in Miami but it was his own error that led to a collision with Lawson at the first corner and the tyre puncture that ended his race.
Quite simply – he has not been fast enough. And Alpine sit ninth in the constructors’ championship after they placed sixth in 2024. If they don’t improve in the team standings, it could cost them millions of dollars in prize money at the end of the year.
Where to from here?
There’s still no official word from Alpine of his sacking, but some reports suggest he could remain with Alpine as reserve driver and Colapinto – who impressed as a fill-in for Williams at the back end of 2024 – simply takes over the seat. Swap roles essentially.
That would at least keep Doohan engaged for 2025, but the reality is he will be looking for a new job in 2026.
And, after sitting out almost all of 2024 as Alpine’s reserve driver, he will be an unemployed racer who has had just six races in two years after making his F1 debut in the final round last year.
That being said, only 20 drivers every year get a seat in F1 so while his recent record might be poor there is no doubting his motor racing ability and almost every departed F1 driver finds their way into a new category somewhere in the world.
New US-backed team Cadillac has yet to announce their two drivers for 2026 – although former Red Bull star Sergio Perez and American Indy driver Colton Herta are two names being widely speculated as likely contenders.
Perez was one of seven drivers sacked in 2024, the Red Bull driver yet to resurrect his career although his name is being strongly linked as Cadillac’s high-profile experienced driver next season.
Aussie Daniel Ricciardo, sacked mid 2024, is always tossed up as a Cadillac option given his US popularity, but retirement from racing remains his most likely future.
Other F1 discards quickly find themselves in new categories or at other teams as reserve drivers.
Logan Sargent, dumped by Williams midway through last season, was set to join the 2025 European Le Mans series but later withdrew and his motorsport career remains uncertain.
China’s Zhou Guanyu and Finland’s Valterri Bottas both were without seats after leaving Sauber at the end of 2024 – now Guanyu is a reserve driver at Ferrari and Bottas is back as a reserve driver at Mercedes where he had previously spent five seasons and won five constructors’ titles.
Frenchman Esteban Ocon was dumped by Briatore at Alpine, but found a seat at Haas in 2025.
Kevin Magnussen was replaced at Haas at the end of 2024, but joined BMW Motorsport and placed fourth at the Rolex 24 Daytona.
Dutch driver Nyck De Vries, sacked from Alpha Tauri after 10 races in 2023 for Ricciardo, moved back to Formula E and the World Endurance Championship.
Mostly the drivers all find new homes because to even reach F1 you must be the best of the best.
The beauty of motorsport is there are racing opportunities all around the world and Doohan, courtesy of his strong financial backing, will almost certainly find a drive in 2025.
It is just whether he wants to give up on the F1 dream or try to fight his way back onto the grid at another team.
Who is Flavio Briatore?
Without doubt, he is the most notorious and divisive figure in world motorsport.
Once engaged to supermodel Naomi Campbell, he has a daughter with Heidi Klum in 2004 and a son in 2010 to his wife, former ‘Wonderbra’ model Elisabetta Gregoraci.
Convicted of fraud in Italy in the 1980s, he is a colourful businessman who has been involved in everything from restaurants to charities to political parties and reality TV show the Apprentice.
But it is in F1 where he has made his name – for good and bad.
From a talent scouting point of view, he has a razor sharp eye and is known as a “kingmaker”.
Whether it was building his 1991 Benetton race team around young German Michael Schumacher, who would go on to become the greatest driver in history with seven world titles, or discovering two-time world champion Fernando Alonso.
He remains Alonso’s manager today while he has also acted as manager for Aussie Mark Webber, Nelson Piquet Jr, Jarno Trulli and now, Jack Doohan.
If you’re in his team, you’re supposedly on the path to success.
But his loyalty is only superseded by his ruthlessness.
He was accused multiple times of cheating in 1994 and was even investigated for removing a regulation fuel filter to speed up pits stops after his second driver Jos Verstappen, father of four-times current world champion Max, was involved in a horrific fireball blaze in pitlane.
Briatore famously sacked Trulli from Renault despite winning the Monaco GP that same season and leading his teammate Alonso in the title standings.
Just like Doohan, personal connections do not stand in the way of team success.
Argentine Colapinto not only brings a deeper network of sponsorships to the Alpine table, but he is viewed as a driver with greater potential to score F1 points which the team desperately need after a shocking start to 2025.
Winning is the biggest priority for Briatore.
That win-at-all-costs attitude is why he copped a lifetime ban from the FIA in 2009 for conspiracy and race fixing after it was alleged he instructed Nelson Piquet Jr to deliberately crash at the 2008 Singapore GP to help Alonso win.
At the time Renault and Briatore did not challenge the charges, with Briatore quitting the next day as FIA issued him an indefinite ban.
But in 2010 he successfully challenged the ruling in a French court – however he vowed never to return to F1.
That all changed in May 2024 after Renault CEO Luca de Meo begged him to rescue the flagging team and hired him as Executive Adviser with full scope to overhaul the race team.
And in just 12 months he has sacked a heap of staff and punted two drivers – Ocon and his own client Doohan.
Brutal world.
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