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Jack Doohan has been named the official Reserve Driver of the Alpine F1 team.
The 20-year-old’s promotion was confirmed as part of the team’s 2023 season launch in London on Thursday night.
“We have a new reserve driver,” began team boss Otmar Szafnauer.
“Although he can’t be with us here tonight because he’s in Bahrain, getting ready for the F2 Championship where he should be, testing, but we would like to announce to all of our Australian friends here and others that Jack Doohan will be our Reserve Driver for 2023.”
The Australian has been on the fringes of the team for some time via its Academy programme.
Last year, he unofficially stepped into the role that would have been filled by Oscar Piastri in the latter part of the season.
That saw him take part in two Free Practice 1 sessions and the post-season test in Abu Dhabi.
At the time, Doohan played down the importance or need to be named Reserve Driver, reasoning success in Formula 2 was more important that the role supporting race drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly.
“Honestly, being a Reserve Driver or not doesn’t help me, or doesn’t really do anything for me,” he said in November when asked about his position by Speedcafe.com.
“The main priority – it’s a bit repetitive – but is to focus fully on Formula 2.
“I could come around to all the Formula 1 races and sit there and be there, but, number one, the likelihood of obviously hopping in a car is, as we know, very, very low – I don’t think Alpine as a group with Renault, had it since 2015 or 2014.
“So it would just be taking slightly a bit of time off my Formula 2 commitments, where I could fully focus on that and take full advantage of my time there as well as extracting everything I can from the team to then hopefully be in a full-time driving role for 2024 – or whether that be 2025.”
Doohan has spent the last three days testing with Virtuosi ahead of his second year in Formula 2.
The F2 season begins in conjunction with the opening round of the Formula 1 season at Bahrain on March 2-5.
