This Formula 1 season has produced a short-lived grand prix career that had more flashes of promise than people will remember - assuming Jack Doohan is remembered at all, since he has rapidly become the forgotten man of Formula 1 2025.
In another world, Doohan is racing in the Belgian Grand Prix this weekend. And it doesn't even need to be a world in which Alpine never dropped him, as Doohan could conceivably have got his seat back as quickly as he lost it.
When Alpine subbed in Franco Colapinto for a five-race evaluation, that description was quickly revised by team boss Flavio Briatore, which was a hint that Colapinto was probably around for the long haul. But Doohan kept his head down and worked on the basis that he would be back in the car at the British GP if Colapinto did not perform.
But come the most recent round at Silverstone, Doohan remained on the sidelines. And Colapinto appears to have been given an indefinite incumbency - assisted at least in part by the arrival of a Latin American sponsor, Claro, which is part of the Carlos Slim empire - despite the poor form that left Doohan expecting to get his seat back.
Comparing the two six-event stints of Doohan and Colapinto is an underwhelming exercise. They have similarly disappointing results, although Doohan has had stronger flashes.
At his point of elimination in qualifying, Doohan's average position (not including grid penalties for others) was 15.5, his peak was 11th in Bahrain, his average deficit to Gasly was 0.36 seconds and he outqualified him once, in Miami.
Colapinto's average qualifying position is 16.7, with an average deficit of 0.3s, a best qualifying performance of 12th in Canada, where he outqualified Gasly for the only time so far in a result that also became 10th on the grid after penalties.
Directly comparing how they performed versus Gasly in every qualifying segment favours Doohan slightly, as his deficit drops to 0.26s while Colapinto's is reduced to 0.31s. The two are clearly very close in any qualifying analysis, plus have shared similar experiences of unreasonable expectations and a threat of being dropped.
But Doohan's overall pace showed a threat to Gasly that Colapinto has struggled to replicate. And while this is not an argument that Colapinto has been terrible, or a big downgrade on Doohan, you can imagine why Doohan would feel very hard done by that he has lost his F1 seat - and potentially any chance of an F1 future - for a change that has achieved nothing.
It leaves Doohan with a tiny and underwhelming legacy.
Barring a new driver arriving somewhere and failing to finish a race higher than 13th, Doohan will finish last in the championship; Colapinto's two 13th-place finishes have him technically ahead even though neither have scored a point, the two only drivers who have failed to do so in 2025.
It is a poor record, and being quite so bad is undeserved. Doohan's Alpine stint featured more potential than the results suggest.
Thrown into a difficult situation at Alpine, driving a car that was tricky to handle and under the watch of team management that undermined him and his successor Colapinto, Doohan had the odds stacked against him from the start.
Despite the lack of points, Doohan impressed with flashes of raw speed - especially after a set-up change after testing helped tailor the Alpine more to his liking for the start of the season - and a strong work ethic.
But his campaign was hampered by mistakes: a first-lap crash in Australia, a practice crash on his second flying lap in Japan after failing to close DRS manually because he had not needed to in the simulator, and a race-ending incident in Miami that came after a strong qualifying performance.
These moments, along with other unnecessary penalties in China (forcing Isack Hadjar off track, 10 seconds) and Bahrain (leaving the track without a justifiable reason multiple times, five seconds), disrupted any momentum he might have been able to build.
Still, within the context of his situation - limited preparation, high-pressure expectations, and a car that wasn't up to standard - Doohan performed better than he was given credit for. While he may now be seen as a footnote in Alpine's turbulent 2025 season, he had the raw ingredients of a capable F1 driver.
Had Alpine committed longer-term, the trajectory suggested there was more to come. Instead, Doohan has become one of the forgotten men of 2025.
The question is whether there will be a second chance.
Even Red Bull, the only team who has treated a driver as badly or worse than Alpine has this year, tends to keep their rejected options in a race seat somewhere. Liam Lawson at least ended up back at Racing Bulls, for example, after being dropped following two races at Red Bull at the start of the year.
Assuming there is no route back in at Alpine - which looks to be the case while Briatore is there - then Doohan's best chance might be to crowbar his way in at Cadillac, which is weighing up going for the most experienced and successful free agents (Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez) or pairing one of them with a younger driver.
Cadillac's known to be wary of taking on a rookie but, with seven grands prix starts plus two sprint races under his belt, Doohan's potentially got an edge on some of the other candidates thought to be in the mix. And there have at least been some informal talks.
What Doohan's counting on for any team minded to roll the dice and give him a second chance - wherever or whenever that could be - is for someone to pay close enough attention to his work at Alpine to look past the results.
While they were not bad enough to deserve being dropped in the first place, they are also too middling and too few to command a place elsewhere.
That is the unfortunate and unfair reality that the most harshly treated driver of F1 2025 has been left in.
