Doohan not planning future F1 steward roles

The five-times 500cc World Champion was invited to take on the job by Jean Todt and Charlie Whiting.

“Jean spoke to me last year, and then Charlie,” Doohan told Motorsport.com. “So I thought why not? I'll give it a go.

"At this point in time I'm not intending to do any more, but you never know. We'll take it one step at a time. I agreed to do it because Malaysia is just up the road, the track is nice and wide and fairly flowing.

“Compared to the bikes, the race control is more high tech. We don't have a lot of the communications that F1 has – all the data that you can retrieve from the cars. So really a job like mine as a race driver's steward is trying to find out the mental side of it.

"Bikes and cars, the only difference is it's a bit harder to do anything too intentional on a bike because you're going to take yourself out as well. Other than that the logic behind it is very similar.”

Doohan says he was fascinated to see F1 up close: “I've not done much behind the scenes in F1 so it's interesting to get my head around how it all operates. I've seen it from the outside for many years, and been involved with the Australia Grand Prix Corporation as a board member, but this was a bit different.

“Other than being involved with Dorna as an advisor, and being chairman of karting in Austraia, I've not really done too much. But at the end of the day the job description is pretty straightforward.”