Having run inside the top 10 at times, Doohan slipped to 14th in the final classification as he struggled for pace in the final third of the race.
“20 laps too long,” Doohan joked of the race.
“It was looking quite good on the soft [compound] and the medium.
“We boxed at the right time for the hard and a bit of bad luck on the Safety Car – six cars behind us on new softs.
“I pushed quite a lot to try to keep them behind, and yeah, once one went through, no rear tyre, then the rest just followed.
“Then we picked up a time penalty which knocked us back a couple of places.”
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Doohan was handed a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits late in proceedings, which meant he dropped a place in the final classification behind Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar.
He also fell behind Nico Hulkenberg on the classification, though he regained that post-race when the Sauber was excluded.
Doohan had been among the first to pit, taking service for the first time on Lap 7.
That afforded him an undercut that left him ninth after the opening sequence of stops.
He was again among the first to pit for a second time, four laps before the Safety Car was deployed to clear debris from Carlos Sainz’s battered Williams.
With 25 laps remaining as he rejoined race, Alpine adopted a conservative strategy and fitted the hard compound tyres for the run home – a tyre that had proved difficult for others to get working.
For more than 10 laps after the Safety Car, Doohan retained ninth place before quickly dropping down the order once Yuki Tsunoda found a way through.
“We were struggling quite a lot with just trying to get to Esteban [Ocon] and that slipstream,” Doohan said of his final stint.
“Yuki was 0.8s coming onto one straight and I thought that I should be fine with a 0.8s gap.
“Next minute, I looked halfway down the straight and he’s on my rear.
“Once he went through, then [I was] struggling quite a lot with the rear, you’re in dirty air, the cars behind you are on that fresh soft, they have that momentum, and you’re a bit of a sitting duck.”
While strategy and the Safety Car conspired against Doohan, Alpine did get off the mark courtesy of a seventh-place finish for Pierre Gasly.
The Frenchman’s result was arguably more indicative of the pace and potential in the A525.
“It was so good until it wasn’t,” Doohan said of his own performance.
“We just need to analyse and get this weekend to come together.
“There’s some strong points, just very unfortunate with the hard and also there’s some things that I can look into to ensure that I can piece it all together.”
Part of that is car set-up, with Doohan revealing there are differences in comparison to his teammate’s approach.
“We had a really good, strong quali car, but I think maybe I just need to have a think into how I’m setting up my quali car to ensure that I also have a nice and pleasant on the tyres race car.
“There’s not significant but there’s just small steps in quite a number of areas,” he added of the difference between his set-up and Gasly’s.
“I like the car a lot more on the nose, for sure, and I think that’s really hurt me today – especially at the end of the stint.”
Doohan remains one of four drivers yet to score a point in 2025, along with Fernando Alonso, Liam Lawson, and Gabriel Bortoleto.
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