Andrea Stella, the McLaren team principal, has cautioned against reading too much into Alex Dunne’s headline lap time in opening practice at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Dunne, the current leader of the F2 feeder series, made his first appearance on an official F1 race weekend on Friday in Austria where he drove Lando Norris’s car in FP1.
Alex Dunne goes fourth on McLaren MCL39 debut in Austrian GP FP1
The Irish driver showed an impressive turn of speed and set the fourth-fastest time of the session, within a tenth of F1 2025 championship leader Oscar Piastri.
The session was headed by George Russell, the Mercedes driver, fresh off the back of his first win of the season in Canada, with Red Bull star and reigning four-time World Champion Max Verstappen second in FP1.
Dunne had prepared for his F1 race weekend debut by carrying out an extensive period of TPC [Testing of Previous Car] outings over recent weeks, driving McLaren’s 2023 car at the likes of Zandvoort and the Circuit of The Americas.
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His appearance at the Red Bull Ring marked his maiden outing in current-day F1 machinery.
Speaking after the session, Stella declared himself pleased with Dunne’s performance, describing the 19-year-old as “quite diligent and impressive.”
Yet he warned about reading too much reading into the raw lap time as it was set with low fuel towards the end of his stint.
Stella told Sky F1: “First of all, before we look at the timing, I think we have to acknowledge that he has gone through a quite extensive plan of testing with some new parts, with some rake work, some adjustments on the steering wheel that we don’t see on television but definitely keeps the drivers very busy.
“You have to be very precise, very much on time, because some of the settings need to happen in portions of the track.
“In all this, Alex has been quite diligent and impressive.
“And then he had also the chance to show some speed and, no surprise, he is a fast driver.
“I think we need to be a bit careful looking at the lap times because his lap time came later on in the stint when the fuel was down.
“But I think encouraging and impressive in terms of Alex himself and also, I think, a good session for McLaren, so we look forward to the reminder of this event.”
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In an exclusive interview with PlanetF1.com earlier this month, Warren Hughes, the head of McLaren’s junior driver scheme, highlighted Dunne’s pace as his biggest asset.
He told Thomas Maher: “His main strength, clearly, is his raw speed.
“That’s never been in any doubt, and it’s been evident from back in the F4 days.
“Working closely with him last year, the speed has never been in question.
“The adaptation to F2 is still on an upward learning curve, but he’s still going in that direction, so he’s continuing to surprise me with how quickly he’s improving – not only the improvement, but he’s still adding those layers on top of his raw speed. That’s the impressive bit.
“He is a work in progress, I would say, but he has all the foundation and the elements are there to make a fabulous driver.
“He’s in the process of putting all that together, but it’s happening faster than I expected!”
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