How Alex Dunne has found an ‘extra level’ as McLaren junior eyes F1

Alex Dunne’s arrival in Formula 2 has seen the rookie driver take the F1 support series by storm to lead the championship after the first six rounds.

It’s just over a year since McLaren signed the then little-known Alex Dunne to its driver development programme, and he has since elevated himself into a position where F1 is a very realistic target for next season.

Alex Dunne lights up Formula 2 to take the championship lead

The Irish driver is producing a stellar rookie season in Formula 2, having found his feet with Rodin Motorsport and carving out a three-point lead after a consistently strong weekend in Barcelona, which saw him bounce back from a gruelling weekend in Monaco.

Over the first half of the season, it’s been a championship of mostly heady highs for the young man from Offaly, having caught the world’s attention with peerless performances in the feature races in Bahrain and Imola, as well as two podiums and multiple points finishes.

His dominant drive in the feature race in Bahrain, the second round, drew a line under the growing pains he’d encountered during a trying year with MP Motorsport in Formula 3 last season, as he produced a display of complete control en route to his first win in Formula 2, and the first for an Irishman at such a level since Derek Daly in 1979.

A few short weeks later, his Imola win was perhaps even more impressive – a considered drive with just the right balance of aggression, speed, and derring-do. With serious momentum building behind him, he followed that up with a great pole position in Monaco to add further weight to the argument that he – as a complete rookie, remember – may actually be the favourite for the title.

The unfortunate collision between Dunne and Victor Martins at the start of the Monaco feature race saw the Irishman experience the full weight of the onslaught of social media abuse that has become increasingly prevalent in the modern era – an emotionally charged disappointment that had clearly stung as the full extent of his hurt became apparent in the press conference days later in Spain after bouncing back with another podium finish.

It’s often said that it’s in the lows of life that people build character, and Dunne, at the age of just 19, has had to show huge mental resilience in the face of a wave of temporary public negativity. His Spanish weekend showed the exact combative spirit that any top-level F1 driver will need in the modern era of minute scrutiny and has underlined just why McLaren has such faith in him as the leading light of their junior driver programme.

Following that, Dunne will become the first driver from Ireland in 43 years to take part in a Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend when he takes to the track for FP1, in Lando Norris’ car, in Austria this weekend.

To help with getting used to the highs and lows of racing, Dunne has been taken under the wing of the highly experienced racing driver Warren Hughes, who heads up McLaren’s programme, and whose lengthy C.V. includes a class win at the Le Mans 24 Hours, a championship win in British GT, and victories in the BTCC and GT1 categories. His been-there, done-that wisdom is exactly the type of influence any young driver would love to have in their corner, as Dunne himself recently told PlanetF1.com.

“Warren’s been massively a really big part of my development since I joined the [McLaren] programme,” he said.

“I think the biggest thing for me last year was having someone to relay feedback back to the ground. With the situation I was in and where I finished in F3… if I was constantly having to tell McLaren myself why things were happening the way they were happening, it would just look like I’m a young kid in F3 making excuses as to why the season is not going how I wanted it to go.

“I had Warren in my corner as part of McLaren to go and relay the feedback and the data that he could see when he was looking through with me and the team to prove that I actually am doing a pretty good job at times.

“It’s just things aren’t clicking, or wrong place, wrong time, or whatever it may be. That was a massive part to play. It’s always nice to have an extra opinion from Warren – he’s a very experienced guy, and if I ever need any advice, I can always ask him for anything, and that’s a massive help. He’s a big contribution to my success.”

Sitting down with PlanetF1.com for a chat about Dunne’s progress over the last 12 months, Hughes was relaxed and happy as we began our conversation in the back of the Rodin Motorsport truck in the F2 paddock, as he evaluated the strengths he’s seen from the young man from Offaly.

“His main strength, clearly, is his raw speed. That’s never been in any doubt, and it’s been evident from back in the F4 days,” he said.

“Working closely with him last year, the speed has never been in question. The adaptation to F2 is still on an upward learning curve, but he’s still going in that direction, so he’s continuing to surprise me with how quickly he’s improving – not only the improvement, but he’s still adding those layers on top of his raw speed. That’s the impressive bit.

“He is a work in progress, I would say, but he has all the foundation, and the elements are there to make a fabulous driver.

“He’s in the process of putting all that together, but it’s happening faster than I expected!”

On such a wave of positivity, it’s inevitable that the wave must occasionally meet the shore, and this moment came at the first corner of the feature race in Monaco – just how did Dunne and Hughes react to the disappointment of that moment?

“We talked it through. We’ve analysed it and looked at what he could have done differently,” Hughes said.

“There are definitely learnings to take from it, and learnings on how to be more prepared to have a Plan A, Plan B, and a Plan C, and make sure the driver is aware that he’s got options. It’s not a win-at-all-costs option.

“That is something for me to consider with Alex, to make sure he doesn’t have that mindset that he’s only got one option.

“It’s what I can do better as well… it’s learning for all of us.

“Alex recognises the bits that he could have done differently, but he can’t control what the other car is going to do. He maybe could have just recognised what the possibilities were a little bit earlier.

“His strengths are across the board. It’s really difficult to pinpoint one strength – he is an absolutely fabulous racer, and that is probably the stand-out thing.

“The things that he’s adding to that raw speed and that hunger. In my mind, I call him an old-school racer, because he’s not come from privilege.

“He’s fought his way through the ranks, and you can see it in his driving. There’s a massive hunger there. He’s now at a level where it’s just starting to refine all of those rough edges, and it’s making him into such a complete driver.”

Is Alex Dunne ready for F1?

As the leading light of McLaren’s driver programme, Alex (don’t call him Alexander!) could be evaluated as the potential first consideration for an F1 opportunity should one arise with the Woking-based squad.

At this point in time, there’s no obvious way into the team – both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have long-term contracts, and there’s no clear ‘partner’ team with whom McLaren may be able to loan Dunne out.

The task of developing Dunne to an F1 standard must continue regardless, and, to that end, he was given the chance to drive the MCL60 for his first foray in F1 machinery at Zandvoort recently.

Run under Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) regulations, such outings are used by the teams as the first stepping stones for junior drivers, in light of the heavily restricted testing rules with current machinery.

While Dunne never got the chance to put in a performance run on the softest tyres available, with mechanical troubles curtailing his running somewhat, his pace is understood to have been only a fraction behind that of the far more seasoned Norris and Piastri, both of whom also drove in the same TPC.

This TPC outing helped Dunne unlock another level in his mental processing, an extra capacity that all the F1 greats have possessed, as Hughes explained.

“What’s really sped up the process is the F1 involvement, working with the right level engineers on a high-level sim, and it’s just been really complementary in that way,” he said.

“I’m surprised it’s made such a difference. But it’s actually opened up an area with Alex, that has surprised me, way over and above the raw speed that’s there.

“Now he seems to have just found an extra level of capacity. The race at Imola was hugely impressive in terms of how he was reading the race so vividly without being told what to do.

“He was asking the right questions at the right time on the radio. He was just making the right decisions at the right time. I said to him after the race, ‘What’s changed? Something’s changed since the last race. It’s like you’ve got more thinking time to process stuff. Is it the F1 stuff?’

“Working with an F1 sim and in a TPC car is way more complex than the F2 car. He said, ‘Yeah, it is that, and it just feels slow because everything’s just not coming at you at a million miles an hour like it is in an F1 car’.

“[He’s got more processing time], in addition to the raw speed, he’s just adding more layers to his capability.”

Does that mean, if he were thrown into an F1 car tomorrow, he’d be ready?

“In terms of speed, absolutely, that’s not in any doubt,” Hughes said.

“I think, if you throw him in the deep end, it’s not a case of sink or swim. He would absolutely swim. He’d come bobbing up and do a fabulous job.

“But F1 now is an extremely complex sport – I’d love him to get the opportunity in F1, but I want it to be an opportunity that allows him to do himself justice, so he’s prepared, it’s planned.

“It’s not just a last-minute thing, as a stand-in in an emergency, because you’re just trying to make the best of a difficult situation, and that.

“He deserves more than that. He deserves a proper crack at it. In my opinion, he’s 100 percent good enough. It’s just a question of putting those extra layers on to make him hit the ground running.”

Andrea Stella: Alex Dunne giving us ‘no headache’

Sources have recently indicated to PlanetF1.com that other teams in F1 with junior driver programmes have expressed some regret in missing out on Dunne, whose star has shot up since signing with McLaren 12 months ago.

Obstacles such as occupied cockpits are a consideration for the future, however, with the task at present a simple one – win the Formula 2 title at the first time of asking. Should he do that, then Dunne becomes very difficult to ignore – particularly as he wouldn’t be permitted to race in F2 again as the reigning Champion.

But, with the door shut at McLaren and no clear route to head down next season, is Dunne giving team boss Andrea Stella and Co. pause when considering their driver line-up and just what to do with the precocious Irishman next year?

“Alex is giving us no headache,” Stella said at Imola, in response to a question from PlanetF1.com.

“He’s giving us quite a lot of satisfaction for his results, his own development.

“This wouldn’t be successful without the talent, and Alex belongs to one of the most talented drivers.”

This praise of Dunne was echoed by Hughes, who said that last year’s F3 campaign had masked Dunne’s abilities as he and MP Motorsport didn’t quite gel.

“It just wasn’t gelling over the course of each weekend for all sorts of reasons – sometimes communication, sometimes just not really understanding what each other wanted.

“It’s a complex sport, and if people don’t just gel for one reason or another – it’s not a criticism of those people, but the chemistry just didn’t seem to be there.

“As the year wore on, Alex started to get a little bit frustrated at some of what he felt were missed opportunities when he had the speed… and I could see it. I could absolutely see that.

“It was my job to report back to McLaren on what I felt the potential is. In my mind, the potential is huge. Despite the hiccups, I could still see the underlying. It’s almost like an unpolished diamond.

“If you just look at the results, you won’t get anywhere near the true picture of what’s underneath it all. I felt that duty to Alex to make sure that message got back to McLaren.

“He was able to show a couple of really good qualifying sessions towards the end of the year, but it still wasn’t coming together.

“I felt F2 was the right move for him when the opportunity came, particularly when I heard which team [Rodin] was going to be involved.

“I know a lot of the characters, and understood what the philosophy within the team was and what sort of environment it was. I just thought that would be a really good fit.

“With my role being expanded to head up their driver development programme, it’s tied in nicely with Alex hitting his stride. What I found is the raw speed is there, the team, and the environment are almost like a perfect match for him.

“What we’ve been dealing with is trying to hone the technique into what’s suitable for F2… actually how you drive the current generation of F1 car is not dissimilar to how you have to drive an F2 car.

“That’s really where we’ve started to make inroads, and the results are coming.

“He stands out in the modern era. He stands out because he is different

“He’s had a great grounding and a great education from [his father] Noel to begin with, and that’s laid the foundation absolutely for him to go forward with.

“The team here at Rodin absolutely adores him, because he’s such a pure racer and he’s a really nice kid. He’s really pleasant with everybody. Nothing’s affected him in any way. No ego, he wants to race, he wants to win.

“They just love working with him, and he seems to appreciate that belief in him, it’s an environment that’s just helping him flourish and grow, so it’s great to see.”

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