Alpine have confirmed that Jack Doohan will make his F1 race debut a little earlier than expected in the season-closing Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with the squad releasing Esteban Ocon in a deal that allows the Frenchman to participate in the post-season test for new team Haas.
Apparently discussions accelerated following Ocon’s P20 quali, so Alpine’s top management may have thought that Doohan cannot do worse than Ocon? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I mean… you can’t finish farther down than p20, but that’s not all that can go wrong. ;)