Doohan was classified 17th in Jeddah, ahead only of Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto in a difficult race for Alpine.
Pierre Gasly was an opening lap retirement when he and Yuki Tsunoda touched, sending both into the wall and out of the race.
Alpine took the opportunity to box Doohan under the resultant Safety Car, dropping him well down the field from which his race never recovered.
“Unfortunately, again, being in that position, you have to take those opportunities,” he reasoned of the strategy call.
“The first stint, I wasn’t feeling too bad, I just really couldn’t get past Nico [Hulkenberg].
“I’d try to get between 0.3s to 0.4s coming onto the start-finish straight and just not enough to get passed.
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“When I would then back off to like 0.8s, 0.9s to let the tyres cool down, it was enough for the car behind to be a little closer.
“I was doing everything I can. It felt like, though the corners we weren’t too bad, and as soon as you got passed by one car, then we started to lose our pit window.
“It was a little bit downhill from there.”
Doohan remains one of four drivers without points at the foot of the drivers’ standings after five races.
They’ve come in quick succession, with the opening stanza of the season taking just six weekends.
It’s a period that has highlighted a need for a better understanding of the tyres as Doohan suggested he has the underlying pace.
“We’re there or thereabouts on qualifying pace,” he said.
“Once we start a bit further up, then we can be in a bit more sync, not be so adventurous on the strategy, and things will just roll over a little bit more.
“When we’re on the back foot like we were today, it was a little bit of a snowball and went from more difficult to more difficult.”
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