Doohan excited by chance to work with Ricciardo

Australian youngster Jack Doohan would welcome the opportunity to work alongside Daniel Ricciardo at Alpine.

Ricciardo is without a drive in Formula 1 next year after agreeing to the early termination of his contract with McLaren.

That was done to clear the path for Oscar Piastri to leave Alpine for the Woking operation, opening a seat alongside Esteban Ocon for 2023.

Competing in the Formula 2 Championship, Doohan is part of the Alpine Academy.

Behind Piastri, who remains part of the programme at least for now, Doohan is next in line for promotion to F1.

And while that’s a possibility, a more likely scenario is the squad buys in an established name.

As many as 14 drivers have contacted Alpine team boss, Otmar Szafnauer, with Pierre Gasly and Ricciardo arguably the leading contenders.

Gasly has a contract with Scuderia AlphaTauri for 2023 and is not known to exchange Christmas cards with Ocon – tensions between the two stretch back to their karting days.

Ricciardo meanwhile is a free agent, with the race winner’s market value arguably at the lowest it has ever been.

With Alpine the most competitive seat available for next season, it places the Enstone squad at a distinct advantage in negotiations.

It’s an exciting prospect for Doohan.

“That would be cool,” said the 19-year-old, who is mates with Ricciardo.

“I think we could have the best of both worlds; mates away from the track and then able to extract as much as I can from him.

“Having such a solid link then also within a driver, and not just the engineers and the team, will be really cool to hopefully be able to extract as much knowledge as I can out of him and then see what the future brings.

“Obviously I don’t know who’s going there, if he’s going there [Alpine], what’s really going on, but hypothetically that would be cool.”

Doohan claimed his maiden Formula 2 Feature race win in Spa-Francorchamps, having finished third in the Sprint race on Saturday.

He now sits fourth in the championship with three rounds to go, Felipe Drugovich leads the competition 43 points clear of Theo Pourchaire, and 84 clear of Doohan.

The Formula 2 Championship continues this weekend in support of the Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix, starting Friday.