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Irish Daily Mirror
11 hours ago
- General
- Irish Daily Mirror
Alex Dunne on the harrowing abuse he faced following Monaco GP crash
Irish racing driver Alex Dunne revealed the extent of the harrowing abuse he faced after his crash caused multiple DNFs in Monaco in the last race weekend. Speaking to The Race, the Offaly teenager accepted the blame for the crash in Monte Carlo which left him with multiple grid penalties for the Barcelona sprint and feature races last weekend. He said: 'I don't think there's any point in me commenting on Monaco really, what happened, happened. 'But I think moving forward, it's clear in these scenarios, maybe sometimes you just need to rein it back a bit. 'Everyone knows Monaco Turn 1, if you come out in the lead, the chance of you finishing there is pretty high. 'Everyone around me is still pushing me on, McLaren and the team are still fully behind me and happy with how I'm doing. So yeah, couple of things to change but should be fine.' He was then asked whether his comeback drive from P19 to 2nd had silenced his critics. He didn't know, as the abuse he received after the events of the Monaco feature race forced him to delete social media from his phone. 'I got a lot of stuff after Monaco, normally I'm not someone who reads things and gets annoyed by them," he said. 'But, I think an hour after the race, I deleted social media off my phone because I've ever received such bad messages in my life. 'A lot of the stuff I got was really, really bad and quite upsetting to be honest. But you know, I think...' His answer trailed off after this as he became visibly emotional before the interview moved onto other topics. McLaren F1 team principal Andrea Stella - who takes charge of the McLaren Driver Development Programme, of which the 19-year-old is a member - told The Race 'Alex is doing very well, he's a very fast driver, very talented, and the situation he had in Monaco was one of those situations where you can learn a lot. 'If we think, multiple world champions they went through situations that were very important to finetune the way they go racing. 'The way he raced today, the way he managed to overtake cars in a very clean way in the first lap, stay calm and see how the situation would have evolved, and capitalise when the opportunity came, was an immediate response to the situation he had in Monaco, and the pressure that came from these social media comments, for me that's something that makes me very proud of him. 'I think it was genuine. I think we need to realise that we live in a difficult world in which people can attack people really with no foundation, sometimes no competence, so we're completely behind Alex, not only on track but also off-track from this point of view." While it would be great to get an Irish driver on the F1 grid, it may be a ways away yet, with a McLaren promotion unlikely until at least 2027 when Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris's contracts run out. If the opportunity arises, though, it may be difficult to look past the Offaly man, with his performances in the F2 championship, specifically his ability to bounce back from his Monaco blip, beginning to turn heads in the sport.
Irish Daily Mirror
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Irish Daily Mirror
Irish driver Alex Dunne qualifies 5th in Spain but hit with big penalties
Alex Dunne qualified in 5th place for the Spanish F2 Grand Prix in Barcelona, with Arvid Lindblad becoming the youngest pole-sitter in F2 history. However Dunne will serve a 13-place grid penalty for the sprint race on Saturday, leaving him in P18, and a separate 3-place drop means he will start from 8th place on the grid for Sunday's feature race. The championship leader Luke Browning qualified in 8th, which will become P7 after the penalties are applied. Dunne received a 3-place penalty for both Barcelona races after misjudging the pace of Victor Martins as both cars entered the pit lane, with the Offaly teenager making contact with the back of the Frenchman's car as he slammed on the brakes. The 10-place grid penalty for the sprint race due to his role in the Monaco pile-up last time out is added to the 3-place penalty, resulting in a 13-place drop for the Rodin Motorsport driver. With 8 penalty points on his license, he now runs the risk of a race ban should he reach 12 points. Dunne's first lap, a 1:25.905, was good enough for 5th position after all the cars had set a time, with the Offaly man setting the early pace. The McLaren Driver Development Programme driver went out early during the final runs, setting a lap good enough for P2 with a 1:25.602 in the early stages before he was overtaken by Sebastian Montoya, Kush Maini, Roman Stanek and the polesitter Lindblad. Meanwhile, practice is ongoing in F1 with a much-touted technical directive on front wing flexion coming into effect this weekend. The change aims to tighten the cars together, but so far in practice, it seems that the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are still on top. The F2 sprint race begins at 1:15pm Irish time on Saturday, while the feature race goes lights out at 9am on Sunday.
