Making his debut at the Australian Grand Prix Weekend, Jack Doohan had a strong start to the opening session on his home turf and beat teammate Pierre Gasly in FP1. In FP2 they both ended up further down the order as they moved to get used to their cars and the track and aimed for top 10 finishes across the weekend.
Pierre Gasly: The first Friday Practice day of the year is done and it’s good to be back in the car in Melbourne. It seemed today there was a lot of action on track, which made things challenging to put together a clean lap with all the traffic… That leaves us a lot to analyse and it is important now for us to make the right choices on set-up for the rest of the weekend. There remains the potential threat of rain at some point, which will make things interesting.”
Jack Doohan: “My first few laps in front of my home crowd were amazing, lots of good emotions which I will be channelling through the whole weekend. Today was a good day of learning across the two sessions, we are trying lots of different things to build out our balance and make sure we are in a good place for tomorrow. The car ran well in both sessions, and we were able to maximise our running with the conditions that we faced.”
Heading into qualifying the team had some flashes of pace but knew that it was going to get incredibly competitive in the midfield. Both made Q2 easily, with Gasly taking a ninth-place finish whilst Doohan finished fourteenth.
Pierre Gasly: We have been trying to find our feet all weekend and today I am pleased with the end result with ninth place in Qualifying. I would say that was close to the maximum today after some impressive pace from some of our rivals. We focus on ourselves, though, and I am happy with the steps we have made session by session. We got there in the end and the car felt strong enough to take us to Q3… We are in a decent spot on the grid to be in contention for points and we will give it our best to begin the season on a positive note.”
Jack Doohan: “A good day today and a positive Qualifying. We were unfortunate to be caught out by the yellow flag at the end of Q2 but these things happen and our pace looked strong before that. We need to focus on what we can control and when we had the possibilities we delivered… The goal will be to maximise the opportunities that present themselves, especially with whatever the weather may bring. We will need to position ourselves well strategically to get the best chance to progress up the field. I am looking forward to taking in the experience, making the most of our package and enjoying the rest of the weekend in front of the home crowd.”
Unfortunately, Doohan’s debut at home finished after a first lap crash, with Sainz also crashing on the same lap. Gasly ended in eleventh position after climbing the field and staying on slick tyres until late on and then pitting for inters.
Pierre Gasly: After such a tough race in really challenging conditions, it is definitely a disappointing feeling to leave without scoring points. It was a lottery out there and I felt like we did well to stay in the mix for the majority of the race… We have shown we have strong pace and I am confident going into next weekend in China, so we’ll focus on the positives as a team and move on. Those conditions were really tough even for the most experienced drivers on the grid with such lack of grip. Jack has done a great job all weekend. He was really thrown into the deep end with those conditions and I know we are both determined to be back next week doing the best job possible and hopefully compete again for points.”
Jack Doohan: “It was an unfortunate end to an overall positive weekend. It was the result of a combination of factors which we will go over together as a team to learn from and ensure it does not happen again. It is a tough way to learn but I have digested what happened and put it behind me to focus on what is ahead… Overall, the weekend has been great, the fans have been amazing, the atmosphere was incredible, and to have the opportunity to drive in front of a home crowd for my season debut has been special.”
