Doohan finished just two places behind his Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly in a solid recovery performance after a rough start to the weekend in Suzuka.
He entered the race short of laps after sitting out Free Practice 1 in favour of reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa, and then crashed early in Free Practice 2.
With Free Practice 3 interrupted by grass fires, he recorded just 28 laps of the circuit before lining up for Sunday’s race.
Beginning in damp conditions, Doohan was one of only two drivers to line up on the soft compound tyres.
“The strategy was aggressive,” he admitted.
“It gave us the best opportunity to move forward, however, I don’t think it was the best strategy for overall race time.
“We were able to execute the undercut, which was great, however, with 25 lap to go we were in a bit of a tricky situation when it came to tyre life because I pushed like a dog from coming out of the box.”
Doohan ran 18th through his opening stint, gaining a position courtesy of a slow-starting Gabriel Bortoleto.
He pitted on Lap 15, his only stop of the race, and rose as high as 14th once the rest of the field completed their own stops.
But with older tyres, he fell victim to Carlos Sainz with four laps remaining and ended the race at the head of a DRS train.
“I had a good experience from that after China, so it wasn’t anything new to me of being harassed for the last 25 laps,” Doohan said of defending from a chasing pack.
“It’s just all good experience for me as well, good learning.
“I wasn’t able to keep Carlos behind on the new soft tyre, which was a bit of a bummer, but all in all, to keep Hulk (Nico Hulkenberg), (Liam) Lawson, I think (Esteban) Ocon… I think those are the three cars that I undercut.
“We have to be content with that.”
With Gasly only two places up the road in 13th at the flag, Alpine remains the only team yet to score a point in 2025.
But while the result fell short of the team’s own hopes, Doohan was one of the few drivers to move forward.
“In the end, we can’t be too unhappy,” Doohan reasoned.
“I went in a bit dark into this session with no high fuel running at all.
“We were able to move forward in a race like today; we’re just going to keep our heads high, keep pushing and try to bounce back and get some points in Bahrain.”
Discussion about this post