Alex Dunne Megathread

Alex has slipped to 4th in the standings. He stayed ahead of Verschoor and Crawford in the sprint, but Fornaroli got past him after taking the full points tally.

So it's Veschoor on 122, Crawford on 116, Fornaroli on 115 and Alex on 110.

But he's well ahead of all of them on the grid, so if he gets away well and keeps out of trouble, he should be able to get back near or at the top.

Possibly true. But finishing in the top three would be good.

I presume it's the penalty specified in the regulations. But a ten second penalty is usually given during the race, so the team can do something to mitigate it or it's a loss of a couple of places. After the race, especially when it finishes behind the safety car it's unusually harsh.

The reason for Alex Dunne getting a 10 second penalty was due to the driver not following the correct start up procedure.

However....Rodin have confirmed that they told Alex not to follow the start up procedure based on the instruction received from the race director.

An awful look for F2 or for Rodin again not knowing the rules ? ,A brilliant performance taken away by something outside of the drivers control .

It's known, it's in the Steward's report.

Absolutely unthinkable.

It should be grid penalties for the next race, at most.

Disgraceful officiating.

I think they felt that since it was a rolling and not a static start, the start setup procedure wasn't required. Should have checked obviously.

Worth noting that Dunne has said that he'd only consider another year in F2, if he finished outside the top five this year. There's huge kudos for winning F2 in your rookie year, not so much in a second or subsequent year.

Examples of winners on multiple attempts are the likes of Drugovich and Pourchairre who won in their 3rd or 4th seasons and are still knocking on the door of F1. Nyck deVries and Mick Schumacher both won F2 in their rookie years and got into F1.

Edit: Actually wrong on both counts there. DeVries won on his third attempt and Schumacher on his 2nd. Those who won in their rookie years were Charles Leclerc (2017), George Russell (2018) and Gabriel Bortoleto (2024). All were straight into F1 afterwards. Lando Norris was runner up to Russell and also got straight into F1. So your rookie year seems to be your best bet to win or finish high up.

Piastri also won in his rookie year, but took a year to get an F1 seat.

Just looking at wikipedia and some drivers that made it to F1 had very average results in F2/GP2:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIA_Formula_2_Championship#Drivers_who_graduated_to_Formula_One

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2_Series#Drivers_graduated_to_F1

The other big thing is Russell and Leclerc were in Academies that allowed them to get a seat in a feeder team (Williams and Sauber) until the parent team had a vacancy.

McLaren can't offer that. They only have 2 seats.

Norris himself joined McLaren after both senior drivers left (Alonso and Vandoorne). Unless something mad happens and someone decides to buy out Norris/Piastri that isn't an option for Dunne either.

Well he's already reserve driver for the McLaren Formula E team (due to end this year) and the current reserve driver for the F1 team is Pato O'Ward who likely won't continue in that role next year considering his Indycar successes this year.

As it turns out, neither were penalised, but Lindblad and Browning were. Both for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. 10 and 5 second penalties respectively which drops them out of the points.

Because thats risky. Pourchaire was 2023 F2 Champion, got to be the reserve in 2024 and then when 2025 came around it was the newer 2024 F2 Champion - Bortoleto - that got the Sauber seat not the 2023 Champion.

Drugovich from 2022 is another F2 champion that had nowhere to go and has been stuck on the sidelines since his win.