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SUZUKA, Japan - Alpine rookie Jack Doohan walked away from a big crash during practice for the Japanese Grand Prix. Five laps into Friday's second session, Doohan spun out at high-speed on approach to Turn 1. His impact ripped both wheels off the left-hand side of his car and extensive damage to his car. Doohan climbed out of the car but walked gingerly away from the car, with the help of two marshals. When radioed by his team to see he was OK, Doohan replied: "I'm OK, yeah. What happened?"  As per F1 regulations, he will have a precautionary medical check-up. Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes said on Friday afternoon the incident was caused by Doohan not closing the DRS. "We are all relieved to see Jack walk away from his incident in free practice two and glad to see he is OK after his precautionary checks," he said. "It was a misjudgement of not closing the DRS into Turn 1. It is something to learn from and I know Jack and the team will be ready for tomorrow. His crew will work hard to have the car prepared after the damage." A few hours after the crash, Doohan said: "First of all, I am OK after the incident. It was a heavy one, something that caught me by surprise, and I will learn from it. "I know the team has a lot of work ahead to repair the car going into tomorrow, so thanks in advance to them for their efforts. My focus is on tomorrow where we will have free practice three to get ready for qualifying." Doohan's role in Formula 1 appears to be increasingly at risk. Alpine's signing of Argentine driver Franco Colapinto to a reserve driver role earlier in the year prompted reports of an in-season report. Sources have told ESPN the switch may happen in time for the Miami Grand Prix in May. Doohan's crash came shortly into his first practice session of the weekend. The Australian had given up his car to Japanese driver Ryo Hirakawa, another of Alpine's reserve drivers, for the first session. Hirakawa would be the driver most likely to step in at Suzuka if Doohan was unable to participate in the rest of the weekend. Oakes added on Hirakawa: "From a performance point of view today, there are some things for us to work on. Pierre [Gasly] had a good run in free practice two, which bodes well for tomorrow, as did Ryo, who did a great job to run through the programme this morning. "We tried some set-up options between cars and we have a good direction to go in ahead of qualifying."
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