In the final year of his contract, Ocon will depart the Enstone operation at the end of the season.
While that was widely expected, the Anglo-French operation confirmed the news in the lead in to this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix.
It followed a difficult Monaco Grand Prix where Ocon clashed with team-mate Pierre Gasly on the opening lap, eliminating himself from the race in the process.
That incident has left him with a five place grid penalty for this weekend’s event, and opened the door for Doohan to complete a rookie driver session.
Each team must field a rookie driver in each of their two cars for one practice session during the course of the year.
With Ocon set to start towards the back anyway, it was reasoned the impact of losing Free Practice 1 in Montreal was minimal.
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As a result, Doohan got the call up, though conditions conspired against the Australian who only recorded three laps – and didn’t set a time – in the opening hour of running.
“It was not the most exciting FP1 session for me, with limited running due to the weather conditions,” he admitted.
“With the forecast for the remainder of the weekend also looking uncertain, it was important to save tyres and keep some sets back in case the rain remains.
“We were able to get an installation lap in with the wet tyre and make sure the car was running fine.
“Then when the track was drying towards the end, we finished off with an out lap on the soft tyre and conducted a practice start.
“We still managed to gather some useful data,” he added.
“In the end, the weather is outside of our control, but we made the most of what we could given the conditions.”
As the team’s reserve driver and the most senior member of Alpine’s academy, Doohan is a contender to replace Ocon permanently in 2025.
Mick Schumacher is another linked with a move to Alpine, as has Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas.
“I think he’s an option, for sure,” Famin said of Doohan on Sky Sports.
“Jack is an option. We are preparing him.
“He was testing in Zandvoort some time ago and he has quite a heavy testing programme.
“We are happy with that and let’s see how he develops.
“He’s one possibility among others, but he’s one possibility, for sure.”
Doohan’s 2024 testing programme includes 10 days of running across a mixture of different vintage cars.
In the days before the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, he drove the 2022 car at Zandvoort in a two-day outing.
Alpine has one further rookie practice outing it must complete before the end of the season, with Doohan poised to perform those duties for the squad.
No timeline has been set out for it to make a decision on its 2025 driver pairing.
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