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Doohan has been drafted in by Alpine in place of Esteban Ocon for the final race of the season, expediting his F1 race debut from next year’s Australian GP.
It was a day of new experiences for the 21-year-old who’d previously only competed Free Practice 1 outings in addition to an expansive testing program.
“New territory in FP2,” Doohan said.
“[It] started to feel real when I was driving the session that I haven’t done before.
“Great day, just progression throughout the whole day, just taking step forwards, just getting closer and closer.
“Really happy and thankful for the whole team for today’s work.”
Doohan clocked a total of 49 laps across the day with a best time of 1:24.961s.
He was four-tenths shy of team-mate Pierre Gasly despite not pushing to the limits on his soft tyre run – preferring instead to take a cautious approach to lay a foundation for later in the weekend.
“I had a little bit of a messier run on my first run on the medium in FP2, so I didn’t go full beans for the soft tyre run because I wanted to have a baseline and have a clean lap before tomorrow,” he said of his Free Practice 2.
“It’s good to know that there’s some steps to be made before FP3 but I get to digest all that soon with the guys.”
Heading into the weekend, team boss Oli Oakes stated that he wanted to see Doohan build up across the weekend rather than taking unnecessary risks early on.
It’s advice that has been heeded, with a locked brake the sum of his issues into an otherwise perfect start to his F1 career.
“I’m just trying to get it closer and closer to where I want to be,” Doohan reasoned.
“I have time before qualifying tomorrow so I’m just taking steps forward each time I’m in the car, each lap.”
Doohan is also not letting himself get caught up in forecasting where he might finish come Sunday.
Instead, he’s focused on working with the team and developing relationships such that they can get the best out of each other.
“I know I have obviously a lot of work to do but I look to keep extracting and working towards my balance that I want and connecting that with the team,” he explained.
“They’ve been with another driver for the past five years so, as you can understand, it’s a lot to adapt in just one day to really transition all things over as we have quite different driving styles.
“I just look to get closer and try to support Pierre as much as possible, be as close to him as I can so we can have a great race on Sunday.”
Doohan has a final hour of practice ahead of him on Saturday before entering his first F1 qualifying session at 18:00 local time (midnight AEDT).
