McLaren junior Alex Dunne has revealed the challenges of jumping between his F1 and F2 cars on Friday in Austria.

The Irish driver was behind the wheel of his Rodin Formula 2 car for practice and qualifying at the Red Bull Ring on Friday, as well as making his F1 practice debut in between as McLaren fielded him in Lando Norris’ MCL39.

Alex Dunne reveals all about maiden F1 appearance

The F2 championship leader, a rookie in the series, has taken two feature race victories so far this year, and McLaren has run him in two separate TPC (Testing of Previous Cars) outings in the 2023 MCL60 over the last two months.

The promising Irishman’s momentum earned him an outing in the current-spec McLaren on Friday at the Red Bull Ring, in which he impressed by setting the fourth-fastest time of the practice hour as he embarked on some performance runs on the soft tyre.

His time was within a tenth of a second of F1 championship leader Oscar Piastri, leading to widespread praise in the paddock and across social media.

Dunne spoke to the media on Saturday morning, reliving his hour behind the wheel.

“At the beginning of the session, when I was queued up waiting for the light to go green, I was sat there behind Lewis Hamilton, that was pretty cool. So, yeah, it was very, very special,” he told media, including PlanetF1.com.

“You could see all the fans because, in F2, a lot of the fans aren’t there when we’re driving, so to see all the stands full while I was on track and that was very cool. It was an extremely special moment for me, and one that I’ll remember forever.”

Having driven the F2 car for practice before his F1 hour, adjusting to the much faster car’s capabilities took Dunne a few laps after a slow start to the session as he was sent out for data collection with aero rakes fitted to the MCL39.

Following the F1 running, Dunne was back in the F2 machine for qualifying, in which he took the seventh-fastest time after being fastest in practice.

“Jumping into F1 from F2 for FP1 wasn’t actually that difficult,” he said, when asked about the hopping between the two cars in the space of a few hours.

“I think the step up is definitely much easier than it was to step back down.

“Of course, there are different driving styles from one to the other, but I think, because the F1 car has so much grip, for a driver like me who isn’t in it every week, it kind of feels like the car has an unlimited amount of capabilities.

“When I jumped in, I felt much more confident and comfortable than what I probably would have expected, and I got onto it a lot quicker than I would have expected.

“I’ve driven the ’23 spec car in TPC testing already, but I think still, even at that, because I’m not in an F1 car all the time, when you jump back into it, it takes a couple of laps to find the rhythm again.

“The jump up was definitely easier than what I would have expected.”

Elaborating on the run programme he had been assigned, Dunne joked, “I was definitely told many times before the session to not crash!”

The Irish driver had only used one set of soft tyres for his performance runs, further underlining his impressive pace in the final push laps.

“But, if you looked at the run programme, you would say it wasn’t necessarily one to go out and try and be fast,” he said.

“At the beginning of the session, we had the aero rake on the car, and we were trying numerous different things to collect data for when Lando jumped back in and then, the quali running we were doing, I was on the same set of softs from the beginning of the session, so I wasn’t actually on a new set of soft.

“I think a typical run programme when you’re doing a performance run, if you looked at FP2, it would be out, push, double cool, and push again, whereas I was doing consecutive laps in a row to try and collect data.

“I was also surprised at how strong the pace was, considering the life of the tyre and what the programme was. A lot of that comes from the fact of how well McLaren has prepared me, and I think a lot of the stuff I’ve done in testing and on the sim.

“I’ve also got the help from Lando and Oscar, they’ve also helped me a little bit as well.

“It shows that McLaren has done a very good job in preparing me for FP1, but still, the ultimate goal wasn’t to go out and be fast, but I was happy. I’m happy that I was fast. So it was good.”

Dunne’s meteoric rise has seen him climb from GB3 to knocking on the door of F1 in the space of two years, and the rapidity of his climb through the ranks isn’t something lost on the Irish driver.

“Things have happened pretty quickly,” he said.

“Especially with how it’s turned around from last year to this year, I went from having what you could say was a difficult year in F3 to now leading f2 and having done my first FP1 yesterday.

“One thing that I’m proud of is the fact that even when things were difficult, I just tried my best to stay calm and confident and try and continue on working on what I knew I was capable of.

“This year shows that it’s back to normal, let’s say, and so I’m very, very happy with the opportunities that McLaren has given me.”

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