The hidden quality Alex Dunne showed McLaren in ‘impressive’ debut run

Andrea Stella on the area Alex Dunne ‘executed perfectly’

With Dunne dovetailing his Formula 1 weekend debut alongside his Formula 2 campaign – he entered the Austrian GP weekend as championship leader – he steadily improved his laptimes throughout the first practice session.

Ending up less than a tenth off the pace of F1 championship leader Oscar Piastri in the other McLaren, Dunne showed no signs of rookie driver nerves as his performance earned widespread praise on Friday evening.

On Saturday evening, following McLaren securing pole position for the Austrian Grand Prix, team boss Andrea Stella spoke glowingly about the performance of Dunne as the Irish driver made his mark on the weekend.

“You give me the opportunity to definitely praise and congratulate the work that Alex has done in the free practice session,” he said, in response to a question from PlanetF1.com.

“He’s been very precise with the work that we had prepared for him, which wasn’t necessarily work aimed at performance.”

Aside from the error-free appearance and his immediate ability to be on the pace, there was a hidden facet to the FP1 hour that impressed Stella.

“It was more data acquisition and some testing, and there’s a difficulty that we cannot see from outside when you do this kind of work, which is actually operating all the changes on the steering wheel while you’re doing some constant speed that you have all the other cars going. And Alex has executed this perfectly,” he said.

“Like all the changes, they were absolutely spot on.

“Then, once we gave him possibility to express some of his speed in performance runs, that was simply nothing short of impressive, I have to say, in terms of the lap times that he was able to achieve, and also in terms of the increments and improvements from one lap to the other, especially when engineers were giving suggestions and he was able to make them.”

Dunne’s work with McLaren’s F1 team continues apace after the Austrian weekend, with the Irish driver carrying out simulator work this week ahead of another TPC (Testing of Previous Cars) outing after the British Grand Prix.

Following on from recent TPC tests with the 2023 MCL60 at Zandvoort and the Circuit of the Americas, Dunne is set to drive at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya next week.

The McLaren programme of continuous training and driving, which is overseen by Warren Hughes, has helped Dunne quickly find his feet, Stella explained.

“Let me also take the opportunity to praise the work of the teams we have around our young talents,” he said.

“First of all, the kind of development programme that seems like it could be very effective in growing the talents that enter our programme.

“Then Alex has also been exposed to the activities with the TPC team, testing the previous cars on a couple of occasions. This has put him up to speed in terms of driving a Formula 1 car.

“There’s also been quite a lot of work at the simulator, with Alex spending a few days there, and this has helped us in terms of his testing from a simulator point of view.

“But there’s also been good work to develop his driving characteristics, driving precision, such that when you have a day like yesterday and you have just a few laps to be fast, it was immediately on pace. ”

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Alex Dunne opens up on F2 challenge after F1 appearance

The nature of Dunne’s maiden outing saw him jump from his Rodin F2 car on Friday morning after practice into the McLaren F1 car for FP1, and then back into his F2 car for F2 qualifying.

It was an intense few hours, with Dunne not able to afford an error in any of the sessions, but the real challenge was in being able to quickly adjust to the vastly superior abilities of the F1 car straight after jumping out of the Rodin.

Having topped the times in F2 practice, then finishing fourth in F1 practice, Dunne took some time to find his feet again back in the Rodin. He finished qualifying in seventh, and felt he had struggled with the re-familiarisation with his usual cockpit.

“I think the biggest thing for me was getting used to the F2 car at high speeds again,” he said.

“The F1 car, especially the McLaren this year, obviously, is a very strong car, which makes a difference. In an F1 car, when you turn into the high-speed corners, it feels like you have an unlimited amount of grip. Every lap, you can push more and more, and the car seems to always be able to take it.

“On my first lap [back in the F2 car], I kind of carried the approach of an F1 car into Turn 6, and I nearly spun!

“I realised pretty quickly that I was gonna have to rein it in. So I think the biggest thing for me was the high speed. It was very difficult to get used to the lack of grip.

“I think that’s kind of what I struggled with. The low-speed corners, all the heavy braking zones were pretty okay straight away, but it was more the last sector where I was struggling a little bit.”

Finishing in sixth in the F2 sprint race, Dunne put in a storming performance to take second in the feature; he finished just over a second behind championship rival Richard Verschoor.

Hours afterward, Dunne’s car was disqualified due to excessive plank wear, meaning his championship deficit to Verschoor grew to 24 points from what had looked to be a six-point gap.

It’s made the quest of winning the F2 title in his rookie season that little bit more difficult, but such setbacks usually serve to only strengthen a driver’s resolve.

Either way, Dunne was thrilled with how his weekend had gone, telling PlanetF1.com that he was looking back over his efforts with pride.

“I think what happened on Friday, I would say, definitely put me in a good position,” he said.

“I think I gave myself the best opportunity of trying to show what I’m capable of in an F1 car.

“A lot of that is thanks to McLaren for helping me develop and preparing me for my first FP1.

“Friday, generally, was quite a tiring day to be honest. I got straight out of FP1 and, by the time I was back in the Rodin truck, I had to get changed and jump straight back in the F2 car.

“Over the whole day, I just felt a little bit tired. It was relatively difficult to perform to the level I wanted to in quali.

“So I think, if I were to do it again, there are probably some things I would do differently to make it easier for myself, both mentally and physically. But, overall, it was still a very, very cool experience. I’m happy that it went well. I think, regardless of the tricky qualifying, I think I can be happy with that.”

McLaren is yet to confirm which drivers will fulfil the team’s two remaining mandatory FP1 rookie outings, with IndyCar star Pato O’Ward taking the wheel for FP1 in Mexico City later this year.