The Aussie was a victim of slippery conditions in Albert Park as he skidded out of the race mid way around the opening tour.
It was a tough end to what had been a bright weekend for Doohan.
He’d out-paced his Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly on Friday before a Lewis Hamilton in spin hurt his chances of progressing to Qualifying 3 on Saturday,
Rain for Sunday’s race marked the first time the 22-year-old had ever driven a Formula 1 car on intermediate tyres in what proved to be a baptism of fire.
“To be honest, I think I was even a bit surprised myself, because it was different than other moments that I had, and mistakes and things that happened in the past,” he explained of his reaction to the crash.
“There was so many good points over the weekend that even if it wasn’t necessarily seen in the spotlight or by a result, that was felt.
“That was much more important to me than the mistake that happened.”
It was a crash of inexperience for Doohan, who noted his car had some subtle differences to Gasly’s in the conditions.
One of those differences was the gearbox set-up, with his more aggressive.
Having eased his way around on the sighting laps to the grid, during which he was short-shifting and using less throttle, an aggressive up-shift caught Doohan out in the race itself.
“Next time, I’ll do exactly what I was doing in the laps to the grid, which was short-shifting already before Turn 3,” he said.
“I was in third gear as I was just puttering around, and at part throttle, 80 percent, I shifted to fourth gear and just lost it on the gear shift.
“We’ll also just match the other side of the garage as well on the upshift harshness,” he added.
“I straightened the wheel, which essentially should be a good thing, but that also meant that we were to max harshness on the upshift, which stunned me.
“No excuses, but I’ll just be even more cautious, make sure that I upshift before the corner.”
Gear shifting in F1 is managed electronically with throttle, engine revs, and even steering angle taken into account by the car as the driver pulls the upshift paddle on the steering wheel.
“It’s all systematic on how it tries not to kick you out,” Doohan explained.
“Straight steering wheel, but that straight is not very straight, a combination of white line… At the end of the day, I stuffed up. Let’s not get in too deep on anything.
“Maybe things weren’t helping me in the best way, but I live and learn.
“I’ll definitely be either light on throttle, at a lower percentage, and upshift a bit earlier.
“Just to get the record straight, there’s nothing wrong with the car. I stuffed up.”
Doohan’s level-headed reaction won praise with team boss Oliver Oakes in Melbourne.
While acknowledging that crashing a car is never ideal, he cut the Australian some slack given the wet conditions.
Like Doohan, he suggested the incident failed to take the shine off what was otherwise a positive weekend.
“Out of six rookies, was it two who finished? So he’s not the only one,” Oakes reasoned.
“Also it wasn’t like a mistake. Obviously, it’s one you don’t want to happen, but it wasn’t through a racing incident or doing something silly.
“He was just genuinely caught out, and he wasn’t the only one.
“He’s had a brilliant weekend and, actually, you want to keep that momentum,” he added.
“And for us in the team, it’s been really nice.
“The dynamic of him and Pierre working with the engineers, it’s been good to see – we didn’t have that for a while.”
Doohan remains pragmatic about the incident and is looking to learn from the experience as he turns to the Chinese Grand Prix this weekend.
“By the time I got back to the paddock, the journey back was actually quite a while, like 20 minutes, so I had some time to sit there with my thoughts and digest it,” Doohan said of his Melbourne crash.
“And very quickly already, that night, I was thinking about this race, Shanghai, China, and not dwelling, because there was nothing I could do to change it.”
Doohan will head out for the only practice session of the weekend in China at 14:30 AEDT on Friday, with Sprint Qualifying following at 18:30 AEDT.
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