Jack Doohan on his first Le Mans, driving LMP2 cars, and life away from F1

AutoHebdo: Jack, how are you feeling ahead of your first Le Mans?

Jack Doohan: “Feeling good. It’s been an exciting process and period so far. The team has done an exceptional job, also both my co-drivers. So it’s been a very enjoyable experience, and I’m excited now for it to actually start. There’s been a long process since Saturday – or even earlier for some of the guys, but for me from last Saturday. So I’m excited for Friday to be done so that we can actually get into the main game.”

AH: Le Mans is a pretty long week; you’ve been here since the Test Day last week. How have you dealt with it? Has it been bit tiring for you, because you’re not used to such long periods?

JD: “Yeah, for sure it’s a long period. To be honest, I’ve just been making sure that I’m eating, sleeping and drinking as much as I can between periods. So any time that I have, I fortunately go back to the motorhome and get some rest – 45 minutes, an hour, even if it’s not sleeping, just lying down. And so far, sustainability has been strong. And again, we’ll need the same thing tonight, trying to get as much as we can before we go into the race.”

Motorsport: How are you adapting to life in endurance racing?

JD: “It’s certainly a lot more spread out. Less time in the car. I’ve experienced a different driving style completely, especially around here where you’re attacking slightly different things over a qualifying lap than you are in a race. And a different driving style to what I’m used to. But so far it’s been enjoyable and this weekend has definitely exceeded expectations.”

MS: How is the driving style different compared to what you knew in F2 and F1?

JD: “You’re obviously in a slightly different car for first, but you have a roof over your head. It’s in the middle between a GT and a full open-wheel. Especially this Goodyear, you cannot combine on it as much.

“The process from a Formula 1 car – being a peak on brake and release immediately and throw the car in using the downforce as much as you possibly can on a combined phase of the corner – just doesn’t work at all in this machinery. It likes smooth, slow, soft inputs. The driving style is still smooth in a Formula 1 car, but it’s a much more aggressive and fast, smooth way here. It needs to be more gentle.

“And you obviously have traction control. We’re able to smash curbs and take sausage [kerbs], which is okay for a qualifying lap, obviously not sustainable for the race, but it’s something that I’ve observed from a GT perspective and never done myself. It’s also a different experience, but it’s been enjoyable so far.”

AH: Around Le Mans it’s also a pretty long lap. How did you deal with it in qualifying, pushing for more than 13km, something you’ve never done before?

JD: “Obviously a lot of the 13km is over straights as well. So on actual corners to be focusing on, it doesn’t feel so much longer. I don’t feel lap fatigue. It’s quite strange; whether it was a one-minute lap or the 3m30s lap that we have here, my brain processes it the same, which is odd.

“It’s good for here. It’s not good for Monaco when you have 78 laps of one minute. It feels much longer than 40 laps of two minutes, let’s say. So I think this has been lucky for me.”

AH: Have you already measured yourself to the traffic with Hypercar and GT3? Because in ELMS, LMP2 is the fastest car. Now you have to be overtaken.

JD: “Exactly. This has been a great experience so far. Definitely a new habit to look in the mirrors, rather than just looking in front of you, for cars that are coming to overtake you, and you just have to get the feeling right. You have to understand where it’s best to get overtaken before, not after, and to maybe position yourself to get overtaken easier, so that you can benefit in different places. There’s definitely time to be gained from being overtaken earlier or later, and lost by the other way around. It’s never ideal, let’s say. Very rarely is it that you get overtaken in a nice place, but it’s just mitigating that loss.”

MS: As someone who is not used to it, how do you deal with sharing the car with two other drivers, with different heights, different preferences?

JD: “It’s something obviously that I wasn’t used to, but I’ve adapted very quickly to it. A lot of my focus is on the fact of having the car and tyres in a window for the other drivers. I feel quite confident and comfortable with my adaptability, and driving through certain issues.

#24 Nielsen Racing Oreca 07 Gibson: David Heinemeier Hansson, Edward Pearson, Jack Doohan

Photo by: JEP

“With my team-mate Ed [Pearson], with so much raw talent, but not as much experience, and then David [Heinemeier Hansson] with a lot of experience, but racing in the last 12 years of his life, and fully tech-focused before that, I definitely have to be the one to make sure I’m taking more on the management side of where the [set-up] window is, so that they’re in a good place when they go out on track.

“So, a lot of my process on car balance, on tyre management, and how I’m driving around is for the team-mates, which I know is where the value add is. A few tenths of management on my side can end up to be an eight-tenth, nine-tenth gain on their side, which is much bigger than what I’m suffering.”

AH: Many young drivers, like you, when they come from single-seaters, they say one of the toughest things in endurance racing is to not see the tyres. Is it something you feel also, because you don’t see the degradation and all of that?

JD: “No, I haven’t suffered so much, to be honest. I feel it in my bum more than on a viewing aspect. I’m grateful for that. No, the only thing is, if you lock up, you shouldn’t be locking up anyway, whether you can see it or not. But on an aspect of seeing degradation, I haven’t felt – at least so far – a limitation from this aspect.”

AH: Do you feel a bit of extra pressure or extra exposition because you’re a former Formula 1 driver? Do you feel that maybe people expect more from you?

JD: “Maybe, but I haven’t felt it. I’ve been in some situations over the last 12, 14 months where I’m in a place where there’s got to be a very, very large perspective of things to really overcome, let’s say surpass, some of the environmental places that I’ve had to be in over the period. So now, I’m very comfortable and not really worried at all about external opinions or expectations, and it’s providing to be a huge gain on my side.”

Jack Doohan, Alpine

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

MS: You’ve made it clear that your F1 experience was a bit bruising, but would you say it’s made you stronger then?

JD: “Yeah, much, much, much, much stronger. It has pros and cons, obviously, of everything. As, you know, where the add has been, there’s also some cons to that, outside of racing, like in personal life, for sure.

“But from a racing perspective, in a mental way, it’s been a huge, huge gain, which I’m grateful for. I just need to try to manage that off the track and make sure that I’m not being some flat, monotone person.”

AH: Is it better to be in a place like this, or like ELMS, with less spotlight, to only focus on racing – you still have media, but not maybe as much in Formula 1?

JD: “It’s been nice just to race. I really enjoy the difficult environments, and I feel like now I would thrive more. The more variability there is to have, let’s say, gains on your opponents or on other people, by having more factors that relate directly to your performance, I see it as an opportunity, a window to improve and be in front. And especially with where I’m at now, I think I would definitely be happy to be in an environment with much more going on, so that I could use it to my advantage.”

AH: From what you experienced before in Formula 1, how do you see Le Mans now? Is it how you expected it? Is it different? Do you think it’s as big as Formula 1, as an event?

JD: “I think it’s obviously very large, and if I do go back into Formula 1, it’s going to be very tricky from now forward to have to miss this race. It’s one now that, I haven’t even done it yet, but just the build-up is something that I would want to do every year for as long as I can now, being so enjoyable. So unfortunately it falls on Barcelona Grand Prix. Maybe we can work something out with the FIA going forward to make it accessible? Probably not, but it’s been really, really cool, and I’ll cherish the moments that I have here because it’s an amazing experience to be facing right now.”

Fans at the parade

Photo by: Germain Durand

MS: I think it’s a recurring theme. Every other year, when the calendars are released and it clashes, people are like, ‘Oh, why?’

JD: “Yeah, obviously your main commitment is your priority, which is why there is no overlap. But in an ideal world, it would be obviously amazing. But who knows, I might be here for many, many years to come, just naturally with what comes. So I’ll be grateful either way.”

MS: What are your expectations for the race? What do you think you can achieve from third on the grid?

JD: “Honestly, I think we have a good race car. I think qualifying was strong. We were missing a little bit in the middle sector, but otherwise, in the corners, we seemed in a good way. And I think we’re stronger in race trim.

“So I’m hoping if we do everything in the correct way in the last stages, we should be able to put ourselves within a shot. But there’s many laps, stints, and hours to go before that’s even coming close.

“So my main focus is taking it lap by lap, stint by stint, focusing on what’s in our control. There’ll be a lot that is not, but as long as we, as a team, do all our processes right, stay clean, I feel then naturally we should be in a good place.”

#24 Nielsen Racing Oreca 07 Gibson: David Heinemeier Hansson, Edward Pearson, Jack Doohan

Photo by: Germain Durand

MS: It’s forecast to be slightly hot on Saturday and Sunday. Which cars get the hottest inside the cockpit, between LMP2s and top-level single-seaters?

JD: “I believe the LMP2, with non-direct airflow like you have in Formula 1. And then in this environment, maybe naturally sometimes in the middle of an F1 race, you’re staggered, you’re in a management phase and you’re not completely like this, where here you’re always managing traffic, either overtaking or being overtaken, so this might add to some slight stress levels. But you can also have, maybe in the middle of the race here, [moments when] you have no one for four or five laps. And you’re also managing. So I think there’s both sides, but definitely with a roof over your head, you’re a little bit more warm.”

AH: And do you know how you will deal with the race, the 24 hours? Are you planning to sleep? Are you planning to stay awake and keep the radio near you all night long?

JD: “I’ll be resting as much as I can and when I can. I think I will definitely focus on myself. For sure, I will be reactive to information, but it’s most important that I’m at the best of my capabilities rather than overfocusing and overworrying about every cent of information that’s coming through the radio.”

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