Jack Doohan crashes out of Australian Grand Prix in chaotic first lap

The safety car has been deployed in Australia.

Alpine rookie driver Jack Doohan crashed during the first lap of the Australian Grand Prix.

Despite the wet weather, the race had got off to a fairly clean start. However, by Turn 6, the Australian driver had crashed into the wall. The driver dipped his wheel onto the painted white line, causing him to spin and collide with the wall. The Alpine driver had started the race from 14th on the grid.

"I lost it on the 3rd to 4th gear upshift," he said. "As soon as I went into 4th I lost the car, so some things that I'm going to need to understand because for me that wasn't out of out of the normal, but a constant learning process.

"Unfortunately this one has big consequences, but I've I've definitely learnt and I'm going to ensure that it doesn't happen again."

He continued: "It seems that we had a spike in RPM when I've upshifted to 4th, so we're just double checking to make sure that everything's behaving itself and maybe a little bit less right foot, a little bit more left and and it won't happen again."

This came after fellow rookie driver Isack Hadjar crashed similarly on the formation lap, ending his race before it had even begun.wow he mana

"I [was hurting inside] when it happened. But in this sport things happen very quickly as we've just seen, and then the next round is already upon us.

"So it was an unfortunate way, but a lesson is learned, I've digested it. There's a lot of positives that we have to take away from this weekend. and for me, they outweigh this netagive and I'm looking forward to bouncing back for next weekend."

Doohan was yet to do any wet running in Formula 1 machinery.

"Yeah, to be honest, the laps to the grid were actually quite okay, felt quite comfortable."

Doohan wasn't the only driver to crash on the first lap as Carlos Sainz's Williams also ended up in the wall - not the way the Spanish driver wanted to start his career with the Grove outfit.

The safety car was deployed while the marshals worked to remove the Alpine and Williams from the track.

Lando Norris retained his lead at the race start, successfully fending off Max Verstappen, who overtook Oscar Piastri to take second.

Jack Doohan, Alpine crash

Photo by: James Sutton / Motorsport Images

Class 1 rain is expected later in the race.

Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes commented on the pressure on Doohan ahead of the Australian Grand Prix. He explained:

"Yeah, I mean, look, I think I was probably a little bit too supportive—maybe saying, just give him a bit of a break. We put him in that situation by having a few reserve drivers, but that gave us options as a team.

"But I think, look, he did a good job in Bahrain. He's been very good here out of the blocks, and I think you can see he's getting a bit of confidence because it isn't easy for the rookies. I think we saw on track that a couple of early mistakes can put you on the back foot."