Alex Dunne won his first Formula 2 race in Sakhir with a superb display, beating Luke Browning and Leonardo Fornaroli to victory in the feature race on Sunday with a stunning eventual margin of 8.2 seconds. After the race, the Irishman spoke to Feeder Series about what the victory meant to him and to his parents.

By Martin Lloyd

Rodin’s Dunne started fourth behind polesitter Fornaroli, Victor Martins and Browning. When Martins encountered wheelspin at the start, Dunne took advantage and immediately moved to second, slotting in behind Fornaroli after the first corner while Martins fell to sixth. 

Dunne soon usurped Fornaroli as the race leader – passing his Italian rival on lap seven – and built a gap that measured almost five seconds by the time of the Invicta Racing driver’s pit stop on lap 15. From that point onwards, the McLaren junior never looked back, and he only briefly relinquished the race lead during the pit stop sequence before taking the chequered flag. 

With his victory, Dunne became the first driver competing under the Irish flag to win a race in championship history. After he emerged from his Rodin machine in parc fermé, Dunne shared an emotional embrace with his father Noel Dunne, a two-time Irish Formula Ford champion who served as his mechanic for much of his karting career. 

“It’s a massive family thing,” Dunne told Feeder Series at a post-race press conference. “Pretty much everything in my motorsport career I [owe] to him. He’s done so much for me – not only him but my mum as well. It’s not just him; it’s a family thing. And I have to say a massive thanks to both my parents.” 

“My dad has been with me my entire career,” Dunne added. “Normally I’m not a very emotional person, but I probably felt a little bit emotional when I saw him [when I was] getting out of the car.”

Dunne led those on soft tyres, while Browning was the leader of the hard-shod runners after he passed Joshua Dürksen. Elsewhere, Pepe Martí had climbed to third by lap eight after passing Rafael Villagómez and threatened to repeat his Saturday heroics of winning the sprint from 11th on the grid. 

Fornaroli was rapidly dropping away from Dunne, and he pitted for hard tyres alongside Martí on lap 15. But with Martins making the switch three laps earlier, the Frenchman was able to undercut both drivers when they emerged from the pit lane. Dunne pitted at the end of the following lap and suffered no such issues, remaining a few tenths clear of Martins. 

On the alternate strategy, Browning had pitted onto the soft tyres on lap 12. He began to motor towards the leaders, passing Martí, Fornaroli and Martins in quick succession between laps 18 and 23. Having flown past the Frenchman for second on the start-finish straight, he was 5.5 seconds behind Dunne, but the Irishman was too strong and Browning never got close enough to overtake. 

Dunne continued to increase the gap until the chequered flag, taking a dominant win in his first F2 feature race after the Melbourne encounter was cancelled. 

“It was a very, very, very special thing for me,” Dunne told Feeder Series. “It’s been a long road to get here, and not only has it been a long road, but I think last year in F3 was more difficult than we would have liked. And I felt like we [had] finished maybe where me as a driver, not necessarily where my talent shows, let’s say.

“I felt like as a driver, I’m better than what I showed last year. And so I think to have a result like this so early on in our F2 season is a very special feeling, and I think it probably means just as much to [my dad] as it does to me.”

Dunne had shown flashes of quality in his 2024 F3 season but could only finish 14th in the drivers’ standings, with a best result of second in the Barcelona sprint. Sunday’s victory represented his first win since his 2023 GB3 triumph at the season finale in Donington Park. 

Behind Dunne on the podium were Browning and Fornaroli. While the latter finished almost 20 seconds behind Dunne and admitted at the press conference that he lacked pace in comparison, he impressively held off Martí for third place on the final lap, with the Spaniard forced to settle for fourth.

Martins was fifth, followed by Richard Verschoor and Dino Beganovic. Rookies Arvid Lindblad and Gabriele Minì both had strong late-race pace and finished eighth and ninth, with Dürksen rounding out the top 10. 

Fornaroli now leads the drivers’ standings on 26 points after two rounds. Dunne and Browning both lie on 25, followed by Martí on 23 and Verschoor on 21. 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency