In Bahrain, Doohan is 'looking forward to a clean weekend'

Like the entire peloton of Formula 1, Jack Doohan returns to Bahrain this weekend for the fourth Grand Prix of the season. This return to a familiar track, where winter testing took place almost two months ago, offers the Australian an opportunity to right the ship after a complicated start to the season, marked by two track crashes, in a race in Australia and in free practice in Japan. Doohan hopes to turn the page. "Indeed, I think we can sum up this start to the season by saying that it's quite complicated!" he said in a press conference on Thursday. At Suzuka, Doohan had lost control of his car After his first laps in Free Practice 2, Ryo Hirakawa replaced him for the first session of the day. A loss of driving time that he will not have to suffer this weekend: "I'm looking forward to having a clean weekend, and this is a perfect opportunity, since I'm going to have another full race weekend."

Changing conditions compared to February

The teams arrive in Sakhir with an idea of ​​the set-up to adopt following the February tests, but the weather conditions will be very different. Temperatures will rise this weekend compared to those encountered during winter testing, with a difference of up to 25 degrees between the lowest temperatures recorded in February and the highest expected at the beginning of April. This will inevitably have an impact on the set-up of the single-seaters.

“I’m looking forward to getting back on track here; it’s a place we’ve been testing, even though it’s 25 degrees warmer today. The car balance and grip will feel very different, and a lot of things will change after practice. I wasn’t particularly happy leaving practice in general. But now we know the areas we need to work on and we have an idea of ​​where we’re starting from. We’re definitely not going to set up the car like we did in one of the evening sessions in 10 degrees, but we’ll try to get closer to the end of one of the morning sessions, plus a few things we discovered afterwards in the simulator.”

Under pressure, Doohan takes the positive

Jack Doohan, who has not yet scored any points this season, just like his teammate Pierre Gasly, is operating under particularly strong pressure. Threatened, without it being explicitly stated, by the arrival of Franco Colapinto, the son of motorcycle legend Mick Doohan wants to continue doing his job as best he can. Despite the many pitfalls, the positives are always present and good to take at the end of a Grand Prix weekend.

"We're now in the fourth race, so we're starting to get used to it. Having three Grands Prix in a row is nice to keep the pace.", he said, referring to the Grands Prix of Japan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. "There were at least a few positives every weekend, which is the most important thing. The key is to learn from the setbacks, understand how to improve and get closer to the best, identify the positives and know how to replicate them."

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