- Haas has confirmed Ferrari junior Rafael Camara for its 2027 seat alongside Ollie Bearman, ending reserve driver Jack Doohan’s latest bid to get back onto the Formula 1 grid.
- Doohan, son of five time 500cc motorcycle world champion Mick Doohan, was dropped by Alpine at the end of 2025 after less than a full season racing for the team.
- Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu says the door with Doohan remains open beyond 2026, even after choosing a rookie with zero grand prix starts over a driver who already has them.
Jack Doohan Keeps Doing Everything Right and Still Not Getting the Seat
Jack Doohan posted one line after climbing out of a Formula 1 car at Jerez this month, and it carried more feeling than most drivers manage in a full press conference. “Incredible feeling to be back behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car, massive thank you to the whole Haas F1 team,” he wrote. Before this test, his last outing in a current era grand prix car had come at the 2025 Miami Grand Prix, his final race for Alpine before the team moved on from him. Nine days later, Haas confirmed it was moving on too, naming Ferrari junior Rafael Camara alongside Ollie Bearman for its 2027 lineup. Doohan did the test. Doohan said the right things. Doohan, once again, did not get the seat.
A Surname That Opens Doors on Two Wheels, Not Yet on Four
Mick Doohan remains one of motorcycle racing’s defining figures, a five time premier class world champion through the 1990s whose name still opens conversations in paddocks his son has never raced in. Jack grew up around a legacy built on two wheels and chose four instead, climbing through Formula 4, Formula 3, and Formula 2 on his way to a Formula 1 seat that finally arrived with Alpine for the 2024 season as a reserve, then a 2025 race seat. MotoGP’s own stars publicly welcomed him to the paddock his father once ruled when the Alpine seat was first confirmed, a rare moment of crossover goodwill between two forms of racing that do not often share a spotlight. The ride did not last. Alpine parted ways with Doohan at the end of 2025, a little more than a year after putting him in the car, and he moved to Haas ahead of the 2026 season as a reserve driver alongside Ryo Hirakawa.
Mick Doohan’s career still gets replayed in documentaries and highlight packages decades later: five straight 500cc world titles through the 1990s, a riding style built on brute car control and an almost total disregard for the physical risk the sport carried in that era, and a serious leg injury at Assen in 1992 that very nearly ended his career before it produced any of those titles. He returned from that crash to dominate a generation of riders, and his name still commands genuine respect in Australian motorsport circles decades after his retirement. Jack grew up watching that legacy from the outside of a cockpit his father never sat in, and he chose cars instead of bikes almost as soon as he could choose anything, working his way up through Formula 4 and Formula 3 before a strong Formula 2 campaign put him on Alpine’s radar as a development driver.
One Test, One Decision, One More Door Closed
The Jerez outing mattered more than a typical reserve driver appearance. Doohan shared a Testing of Previous Car session in the 2026 VF-25 with Hirakawa and Sho Tsuboi, and paddock insiders later described it as the kind of single test day that can decide a driver’s next contract. Haas was working through its own succession plan at the same time, with Esteban Ocon’s future at the team unsettled and a queue of junior drivers angling for the seat his departure would open. Camara, a Ferrari protege who impressed through Formula 2, emerged as the frontrunner and was confirmed for 2027 alongside Bearman, the young Briton Haas has built its next era around. For Doohan, a driver with actual grand prix starts already on his record, losing out to a driver with none is the kind of result that invites second guessing about what more a reserve driver can realistically do to change a team’s mind.
Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu did not close the door completely when asked directly whether Doohan would stay with the team into 2027. No decision had been confirmed, he said, before adding: “So with Jack, our door’s open.” Komatsu said discussions with Doohan and his management about a future together were ongoing, calling the situation “still an open question,” and he praised everyone who went through the selection process, Doohan included, saying they “did a very, very good job.” It is the language teams use when they want to keep a relationship intact without making a promise they are not ready to keep.
What an Open Door Actually Means for a Driver Out of Starts
An open door is not a seat, and Doohan knows the difference better than almost anyone on the current grid. He has already watched one team bring him in and move on inside fourteen months, and he now watches a second team pick a rookie over him for a seat he tested specifically to win. His options from here are narrow: stay on as a reserve through 2027 and hope a sudden vacancy opens somewhere on the grid, as happened once before when Alpine gave him his first chance, or accept that F1’s current wave of young talent, backed by manufacturer junior programs with more resources than almost any era in the sport’s history, could simply be crowding out drivers who do not arrive with a factory contract attached. Camara’s path through Ferrari’s junior system, and Bearman’s own route through the same pipeline before his Haas promotion, both point to a grid increasingly shaped by manufacturer backing rather than open competition for available seats.
The Hardest Part of Following a Legend
Mick Doohan’s career ended with five world titles and a reputation few riders in any era have matched. Jack Doohan’s F1 career, so far, has produced a partial season, a release, a reserve role, and now a second rejection delivered politely through a team principal’s careful choice of words. None of that erases what the Jerez test showed: a driver Haas still wants to keep talking to, even after choosing someone else. For a 23 year old trying to build his own name in a sport his father never raced, that distinction, wanted enough to keep around, not wanted enough to put in the car, is becoming the defining shape of his career so far. Whether 2027 becomes the year that finally changes, or simply the year he spends watching Camara and Bearman race the car he tested, is a question Haas itself admits it has not answered yet.
There is a version of this story where Doohan gets another shot the way his father once got back on a bike after Assen and turned a near career ending setback into five championships. There is another version where a crowded grid of manufacturer backed juniors simply never makes room again, and a Jerez test becomes a footnote rather than the start of a second chance. Doohan has already lived through one of those versions once, with Alpine. What separates this moment from that one is that Haas, unlike Alpine at the end, is not cutting the relationship off. It is choosing someone else for the seat while telling Doohan to stay close, a distinction that will mean everything if a seat opens again, and very little if it never does.
For now, Doohan’s F1 résumé reads like a list of almost moments: an almost full season with Alpine, an almost seat with Haas, a test that almost changed a decision already made. Racing careers are rarely won on almosts, and Doohan knows that better than most members of this year’s rookie class, having already watched one team step away from him once before.
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