Oliver Bearman and Isack Hadjar have defended their fellow Formula One rookie Jack Doohan after Alpine’s decision to drop the Australian after just six of the season’s 24 races.

Doohan, who failed to score a point, has been replaced for at least the next five races by Argentine Franco Colapinto, who had been tipped for the seat since his arrival as reserve in January following a nine-race stint with Williams last year.

Haas driver Bearman, who scored on his stand-in debut with Ferrari last year, said Doohan, 22, had to deal with extra pressure hanging over him from the start.

“I can only imagine it’s a horrible situation and I feel like his treatment was very unfair,” Bearman told reporters at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix on Thursday.

“We’ve gone to four out of six tracks that have been new to us as rookies. We’ve had two sprint events which are even more difficult for us as rookies,” added Bearman, talking of races with limited practice time available.

“Before he even gets to the European season where there are the tracks he knows, he’s already thrown out of the car. So, yeah. Incredibly harsh. Imagine.”

Doohan, son of motorcycle great Mick, remains on the Alpine driver roster and will be spending time in the simulator while Colapinto gets to grips with the car.

Racing Bulls’ Hadjar, whose teammate Liam Lawson was promoted to the main Red Bull team and then demoted after just two races this year, agreed Doohan had been up against it from the start.

“Even before the season, it smelled a bit bad, because I think he entered the season with a lot of pressure, expectations,” said the Frenchman.

“So not a really good environment. And it feels quite unfair, because six races in, he didn’t have much time to show anything, and it’s not that he had a rocket ship as well. So, yeah, a bit harsh.

“I didn’t have a gun to my head before starting the season. So that was definitely helpful.

“I can understand when you’re Red Bull, you want to fight for the world championship, so this makes sense maybe in the top team. But otherwise if you want your rookie to have experience, then you need to give him races. Otherwise he can’t race.”

Lawson agreed that Doohan deserved more of a chance.

“It’s very cut-throat,” he said of the environment. “In his first season I think he did enough for sure even before F1 to be in Formula One in the first place. He deserves to come back. There’s 20 seats, it’s very tough.”

Meanwhile, Colapinto told reporters that replacing another Formula 1 driver during the season was “never nice circumstances” and he didn’t believe his own five-race deal is long enough.

“Happy to be back, and of course never nice circumstances when it happens like this, when you step in another driver’s seat, but you never really choose the moment you do it in Formula 1,” said the Argentine.