Alpine take responsibility for Doohan pressure in striking admission

Oliver Oakes has conceded Alpine is at fault for creating the "noise" surrounding embattled driver Jack Doohan, who is embarking on his debut F1 season under a cloud of speculation over his future.

The team principal of the Enstone squad does not believe it has put the Australian driver "in the best position" due to the near-constant rumours now engulfing his career in F1.

By signing the well-regarded and highly-popular Franco Colapinto to a reserve role, paying millions to prise him away from Williams, Alpine has directly fed existing, but thus-far unfounded, reports that Doohan has a mere handful of rounds to impress this season - or risk being shown the door.

The Argentine is joined on a packed Alpine bench by Paul Aron, Ryo Hirakawa and current F2 driver Kush Maini, but Oakes maintained that approach is the right one for the team despite admitting he feels for Doohan.

"I think it's fair to say we've caused a lot of the noise," the Briton told media including RacingNews365. "Being open, we haven't put him in the best position there.

"But I also think flip it the other way, we've got a duty as a team to perform, got 900 people who depend on us to make the right choice for the team, and I think a lot of its circumstance as well, isn't it?

"Because you're going through a reg[ulations] change, we've got four reserves now. As a team, we need to do that because it is right to have one eye to the future.

"But I feel for him, because at the end of the day, probably all that noise was brought on from what we did."

Oakes: 'You have to perform no matter what's thrown at you'

Doohan crashed heavily on the first lap of the Australian Grand Prix, his home race, further heaping pressure on the 22-year-old, despite a solid weekend up to that point.

Oakes pointed out that all F1 drivers must be able to handle intense scrutiny, no matter the circumstances. Although, he did acknowledge how Colapinto's loud and passionate following further added to the situation.

The 37-year-old also highlighted how a quiet winter of F1 news likely exacerbated the amount of coverage the story was afforded by the media.

"By the same token, if you're good and you can handle it, you deserve to be in F1," he added. "At the end of the day, you are one of 20 drivers here, and you have to perform no matter what's thrown at you.

"And from my side, I think probably, if it had been anyone else who was signed as a reserve drive without a big following and all of that sort of noise that comes with that, it would have been slightly different.

"I think as well, it was probably quite a quiet winter, other than Lewis's [Hamilton] move [to Ferrari], everyone was looking for something to write about.

"But hopefully now, give it a couple more races to just settle down a bit. I think that would just be quite nice as well."