Ireland's next motor racing star: ‘I originally started at the age of nine'
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Loading... - Astrid Barfuss
- 20 Apr 2022
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For anyone who watched with dismay the unfolding confusion and ridiculousness that was the 2021 Formula One finale in Abu Dhabi, there is at least some hope to be had about the future of motor racing. Specifically, there’s some hope to be had about the future of Irish representation at the very pinnacle of the sport.
We’ve seen Irish drivers do well in F1 in the past – names such as Derek Daly, David Kennedy, and Eddie Irvine, depending on whether you consider that last name Irish or Northern Irish, spring to mind – and now, with luck, a new name is on the way to being added to that list. Alex Dunne.
The teenager from Meath has already had something of a sparkling career. He’s a multiple race winner in pretty much ever form of karting – always the nursery slopes for any aspirant racer. He started young, too.
I think the switch, from karts to cars, was initially a little bit of a struggle
“I originally started racing at the age of nine” Alex tells The Irish Times. “I started in Ireland, before venturing over to the UK, and got to race in the highest levels of karting there.”
He raced and he won – Dunne’s victories include wins in Irish and British karting championships, racing in the IAME karting event at Le Mans, placing 11th in OK world karting championship, and in 2019 taking an outright win at the Adria circuit in Italy, as part of the Junior European Karting Championship.
Since when, Dunne has made the step up from karts to “proper” racing cars. He’s now racing in the German Formula 4 championship, where the cars look like Formula One racers, but in miniature.
Powered by turbocharged engines supplied by Fiat-Abarth, these F4 cars are quick, nimble, and challenging. Not only that, but Dunne gets to race them on such legendary tracks as the Nurburgring and Hockenheim, scenes of many an F1 world championship battle.
“I think the switch, from karts to cars, was initially a little bit of a struggle” Dunne tells The Irish Times. “But after a day, maybe a day and a half, it started to feel more natural for me. I had a lot of coaching from my father, who raced cars as well, so that was helpful. I also had a home simulator, which helped me get used to the gearbox, changing the brake bias, all those sorts of things. So actually I’d felt pretty comfortable before I’d even driven the physical car.”
That use of electronic simulation has come a long way in motor sports. The 1997 Formula One world champion Jacque Villeneuve famously used a PlayStation game to learn the layouts of the circuits on which he’d be racing, but now drivers like Dunne can not only used sim-racing to prepare for the real thing, it’s also a way of showing their skills to a wider audience. Read More...
