Jack Doohan did not manually deactivate his Alpine’s drag reduction system into the first corner at Suzuka because he had not been doing so in the simulator in his Japanese Grand Prix preparation.
Doohan crashed at the start of his second flying lap in FP2, having missed FP1 because Alpine used one of its mandatory rookie sessions for Ryo Hirakawa.
Pierre Gasly would have been the one to make way but Alpine wanted to evaluate some car changes after its tough previous race in China.
The cause was Doohan not manually shutting off the DRS before turning into the first corner - the same approach he had on his first flying lap, when he did not lose control.
The DRS closes if a driver brakes or lifts by a certain amount, although that threshold is customisable within a certain tolerance, or if they manually turn it off.
Doohan did not crash on his first lap in FP2 despite not deactivating the DRS himself, or lifting or braking enough for it to close before turn-in, because his corner entry was not as aggressive.
A faster entry at the second attempt was then enough to unsettle the car with the reduced rear downforce from the wing, and cause the spin.
What was unclear at first is why Doohan was not shutting off his DRS unlike his Alpine team-mates Gasly and Hirakawa, who drove Doohan’s car in first practice.
It is understood that this was Doohan’s habit from his preparation on the simulator.
Rather than Doohan deliberately leaving the DRS open, he was not consciously thinking about closing it because of muscle memory from his simulator preparation. And he expected the rear wing to close.
He had not noticed it would be an issue after the first lap because the more conservative entry did not destabilise the car before he braked more and the wing closed.
Alpine did not realise he was doing it on the sim, and it did not have time to check or intervene after his run in FP2 as Doohan went from a first push lap into a cooldown with traffic management, then another push lap immediately after.
However, the primary error is Doohan not manually turning the DRS off, and the general view in the paddock even among other drivers is Doohan should have been notified by the team as a failsafe, but he should have known that turning it off himself was necessary.
Alpine has a new engineering team in place for this weekend. Doohan’s former race engineer is now working with Gasly, whose previous engineer has moved into another role within the team.
Doohan’s former performance engineer is now his race engineer, so he is new to the position but the two have worked closely together already.
The damage to Doohan’s car was extensive but Alpine rebuilt it for FP3 and was able to keep the same engine components.
