Heading into the second round of the F2 championship at the Bahrain GP, Irish and Rodin Motorsport driver Alex Dunne sits P10 in the Drivers’ Championship after a good weekend at the Australian event.
After dropping 10 places on the grid following controversy involving Rodin Motorsport and two other teams in pre-season testing, the Irish driver charged through from P16 on the grid to finish 9th in the Sprint, including some brilliant passes into turn 11. It was even more impressive considering he crashed in FP and missed out on vital running.
The feature race was called off as Albert Park resembled a morning and early afternoon Dunne is very familiar with in his home country of Ireland: heavy rain.
Alex Dunne happy with with the pace ahead of F2 Bahrain GP round
Speaking to Pit Debrief and other media outlets on Thursday along Sebastian Montoya ahead of the weekend, the driver from Offaly explained how he feels at home in the car and is happy with the balance and performance of it, crediting Rodin Motorsport in the process.
“I think Melbourne was pretty good. I think to be completely honest I was pretty happy with well happy and unhappy with P5 in quali considering the crash on pretty much my first push lap of FP.
“So I think to kind of put it all together and have you know a pretty decent starting position which was P5. Yeah, of course, in the end I didn’t get to start from there because of the penalty and because of the weather.
Rodin Motorsport car working well for Alex Dunne ahead of F2 Bahrain GP round
“But no I think generally the pace has been really strong so far. To be honest the team have been doing a mega job. The car has been really good and kind of has always been in the window. I’ve never really had any complaints so far to be honest.
“And I think naturally when you’re kind of in that window with a car and the team it makes my life as a driver much easier, which is a really nice position to be in and a very comforting position to be in.
“Yeah I think the quali pace and race pace has been really strong so far and you know we showed that in quali in Melbourne and then the sprint race was also really strong you know going from P16 to P9.
“So yeah I’m feeling good. Team are doing a good job. I feel like I’m on top of things now and I feel pretty comfortable in the car.
“So I think if we keep on building on that we can have a strong year.”
Alex Dunne on the benefits of in-season F2 testing at Bahrain
Rodin Motorsport could only take part in two days of the recent Bahrain in-season test as part of the pre-season controversy they were involved in. Nonetheless, he logged 119 laps across Day 1 and Day 2.
Asked by Pit Debrief how important the running was after all the red flags in Melbourne and having no feature race, Dunne outlined the positives of it, as well as explaining how he’s been able to do more testing compared to F3, GB3 and the various F4 categories he completed in previously.
The fact that they could do laps on the soft tyre in testing to try qualifying simulations was important according to the 19-year-old, too.
“To be honest I would say I think Rodin as a team probably were in a little bit of a better position ending last year [than PREMA] and starting this year with the car. I think they kind of they got on top of things pretty quickly.
“So I think thankfully and realistically from that side of things the car has always been in a good window. I don’t really feel like I’ve had to do a whole lot of developing or kind of changing things. It’s been pretty good and pretty comfortable since I started driving with the team so from that aspect it’s been great.
Low fuel, qualifying simulations
“And like Seb[astian] [Montoya] said I think mainly in FP, you know, FP is usually on the harder tyre, the harder tyre compound and also much hotter so there’s a lot less grip.
“Usually you have more fuel because you fuel for the whole session, so I think the jump from FP to quali is always quite big, and as a rookie that can be something that’s pretty tricky.
“So the fact that we’ve had a good opportunity to test that with testing and all that sort of stuff has been very helpful.
“And the red flags in Melbourne as well, that kind of doesn’t maximise your learning. Unfortunately one of the red flags was caused by me.
“But no I think yeah definitely it’s been very helpful. I think we’ve had a lot of, at least for me personally, I’ve had a lot more testing recently than what I’ve had in previous years, so it’s been a big benefit.”
