DUNNE TAKES THE FAST LANE
MEATH driver Alex Dunne will test a Formula 3 Car at Snetterton this week as the Irish teenager continues his rise up the world motorsport ladder.
Dunne, managed by his father Noel, a former Formula Ford Festival and two-time Irish Formula Ford Championship winner, heads to the test having won Italian Formula 4’s final race at the Red Bull Ring in Austria last weekend.
He held off his teammate Kasper Sztuka to register his third victory of the campaign and move into third place in the ultra-competitive series.
The 16-year-old is not only producing results in the Italian F4 class, he also leads the British F4 Championship and after this weekend’s test session at Snetterton, the focus will be on wrapping up the British series at Silverstone the following weekend.
“It’s pretty much a fulltime role now but with Alex producing the goods, it’s a bit of an easier sell, but the costs involved are eye-watering,” said Noel.
“After this week’s F3 test, we are heading to Italy for three days of talks on his future, but we are speaking to teams, sponsors and indeed Formula One academies at the present time.”
Handful
It’s been a long time since Ireland had an F1 driver, with the likes of Eddie Irvine, John Watson, and Derek Daly amongst only a handful making their way to the top echelon of the sport.
It takes MASSIVE amounts of backing and indeed luck to make it to F1, but Dunne is going the right way about it being at the front of his F4 Championship series.
“Formula 4 is like the start of the path all the way to Formula 1,” Alex recently told Newstalk.
“(But) that is probably one of the worst things about motorsport, how hard it is financially.
“As a family, we don’t have the millions you need to get to Formula 1, but we have a lot of loyal sponsors who are helping me along my journey, which is great.”
The British F4 series is now being run by Motorsport UK and the teams use the combination of Tatuus chassis and engines supplied by Abarth and runs as part of the British Touring
Car package.
The British F4 officially came into being in 2015 when it was backed by Ford. England’s Lando Norris, now with the McLaren F1 team, won the inaugural championship.
Dunne is currently racing with the Hitech GP outfit in the UK series and the US Racing team for his Italian campaign, which has six more races to run — three at Monza and the final trio at the Mugello circuit.
The Irish teenager has also won 11 of the 24 races so far in the
British F4 series and it too has six races to go — three at Silverstone, home of the British Grand Prix on the weekend of September 24 and 25.
Wrap
Dunne will be hoping to wrap up the series at Silverstone ahead of the final round at Brands Hatch in October.
At the last round at Truxton, Dunne and set a new record for most victories in a single season, eclipsing the previous best of 10 shared by Zane Maloney and Jamie Caroline.
It also moved him 106 points clear at the top of the drivers’ standings with two rounds and six races to go.
“I think I’ve just got to go out there [to Silverstone] and do what I’m doing every weekend — try to put it on pole, and then win the races,” He added.
Meanwhile, Naas driver James Roe heads to Vallelunga in Italy this weekend to continue his sojourn in the world of sports car racing.
Roe will continue to compete in the Indy Lights series presented by Cooper Tires in the USA but has recently, at the behest of his sponsor Topcon, been behind the wheel of a Lamborghini sports car.
He will race number 9 on the Vallelunga Circuit near Rome this weekend and then continue the series at the historic Autodromo Nazionale di Monza from October 7 to 9.