Jack Doohan says he wants to use his final months as Alpine’s reserve drive to wrap the team around him and adapt the car to his driving style to ensure he can hit the ground running in 2025.

Doohan was confirmed as Australia’s next Formula 1 driver last week, with Alpine announcing he will partner incumbent Pierre Gasly at Enstone in 2025.

The promotion is validation not just of his underrated and quietly quick junior career but also of his standout performance as the team’s reserve driver, particularly this season, when his simulator work has proved invaluable to Alpine’s recovery from its worst start to a season since Renault returned to the sport in 2016.

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But there’s a significant difference between being a valued member of the supporting cast and a protagonist able to lead the team. Before he can dream of lining up on the grid for his home grand prix, Doohan had a mountain of preparation to undertake to ensure he can hit the ground running.

“My first goals aren’t really even on even round 1 yet; it’s to make sure that I embed myself well within all the team at Enstone as a driver,” he told select media, including Fox Sports.

“Obviously I’ve been a part of the team for many years now, but making sure that I get everyone wrapped around with me and the way I like to go racing, making sure that works well with the chemistry that Pierre has got so that we can make the best working environment going forward for next year, and making sure that I’m fit and that I’m comfortable inside the car so that when we do go racing, I can make the most of my potential.”

Doohan has an advantage over most rookie drivers in that he’s intimately familiar with Alpine already, having been backed by its junior academy since 2022 and becoming the team’s senior reserve driver later that year during his maiden Formula 2 campaign.

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This year he has forgone a racing program in favour of fully embedding himself in the F1 operation, deepening that connection.

“I have the relationships with everyone, which is amazing,” he said. “It’s just switching those over to … being able to get into the nitty gritty of what I like, how I want a race car to be, how I want to fit and how we should go about working together in the best possible way to ensure that next year we can hit the ground running as a team and go forward.

“I know Pierre quite well to an extent. We get on well, which is good, and I look forward to that as well. It’s important that we make Alpine an amazing place and an amazing working environment for us to go forward for next year.”

The simulator component of his reserve duties give him the added advantage of being able to influence car development in his favour. With regulations stable between this year and next, any work done on the 2024 machine will directly benefit him when he’s belted into the 2025 car.

“To be honest, I’ve just been making sure that I’m driving like both the main drivers are at this point in time for the simulator, making sure I’m making the most of that,” he said.

“I think it’s now where potentially we might start to explore more my side and combine that and where I’ll start to notice maybe more clear differences.

“I will manage that for the rest of this year while still fulfilling my reserve driver duties and making sure I’m making the most of that simulator time, because it’s also great that everything that I’m doing in working towards the development of this car is also working towards the development of my future car as well.

“Everything is to my benefit.”

It’s a position he wouldn’t be in had he not heeded the team’s encouragement to eschew a racing program in another series this year in favour of committing full-time to being its reserve driver.

Reluctant at first, Doohan was eventually won over by the team’s commitment to him.

“I probably would have raced if I could have, but with my testing. the sim and needing to be at the track for every single day, I wasn’t able to,” he said.

“I looked at that — the team wanting me to be at the track and wanting me to focus on Formula 1 — as a good thing.”

The gamble paid off for the Queenslander, whose industriousness off-track impressed the team enough to earn him the full-time drive, but it’s also paid big dividends for Alpine after its worst start to a season since its return to the sport in 2016.

Doohan’s reserve role entails working in the simulator on the Friday of European grands prix, where he tests and evaluates set-up options in parallel with the race team at the track.

“Being in sim is a great opportunity for us to try different variations and explore our set-up options more than just the planned ones that are made to do throughout the session,” he explained to Fox Sports earlier this season. “It gives us the chance to feed back whether this is a good direction to potentially go for in the next session or to try maybe a set-up that they’re not so sure about, that could be 50-50.”

After going scoreless in the first five rounds of the season — all outside of Europe — Doohan’s simulator work has proved critical to the team’s turnaround.

Unsurprisingly it was in Monaco, the second European race of the year, that Alpine made its first Q3 appearance of the season, with Gasly converting to collect just the team’s second point of the campaign.

The then team boss, Bruno Famin, made special mention of Doohan’s contribution afterwards, with the team’s website described the Aussie as an “unsung hero”.

That understated work continued at the weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix in the hours following confirmation of his promotion.

Friday in Zandvoort had been a difficult day for Alpine, with Gasly 14th and Esteban Ocon 17th after the sole dry hour of running in FP2.

Gasly said that his “the feeling in the car in free practice 2 was not too great”, with Ocon imploring the team to “turn things around overnight”.

Doohan was on the job. The simulator team worked through Friday until 2:40am on Saturday evaluating set-up options that could salvage the weekend, with the Aussie then flying to Zandvoort in time for the start of action later that day.

When FP3 was effectively cancelled by a long red flag, suggested changes prompted by the simulator work couldn’t be validated, setting up qualifying as a high-risk experiment of the tweaks.

Gasly got the team into Q3 for just the fifth weekend this year and finished ninth, scoring two valuable points.

“I’m really happy with the progress we made as a team since Friday,” Gasly said. “We managed to turn things around and come away as the best team after the top four [frontrunners].”

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Speaking after Doohan’s promotion was confirmed, Gasly praised the Australian for his contribution to the team.

“I am very happy for Jack,” he said. “I’ve seen him evolve within the team over the last 18 months. He works very hard, he’s very involved and it’s a great opportunity for him.

“I’m looking forward to continuing our work together as teammates.”

The step up to full-time driving isn’t to be underestimated, but Doohan is giving himself the best chance to shine come Melbourne next season.