A starring debut in FP1 last week put on public display something evident throughout 2025: McLaren has another top Formula 1 protégé who's shown the potential to perform at the highest level.
Alex Dunne was already having a remarkable rookie Formula 2 season, but the way he has conducted himself with McLaren's F1 team - both behind the scenes and on-track in Austria and his private tests at Zandvoort and Austin - has moved him from promising star to future F1 driver.
The Race sat down with Dunne and some of his key McLaren backers to better understand him, his future, how he's changed his approach and why McLaren rates him so highly.
A 'perform or it's over' rise
Dunne hasn't had an easy route to the top. His dad, erstwhile Formula Ford racer Noel, manages his career and has raised the sponsorship Alex has needed throughout his junior career.
"Sometimes [my Dad has] probably had to work harder than I have, and it's been a real struggle to kind of get here," Dunne told The Race after making his FP1 bow.
Dunne has never had the luxury of big financial backing, so prior to joining McLaren's fold last year, he was very much having to race up the junior ladder with the mentality of ‘perform or it's over' for his racing ambitions.
"I've probably said it before, but he's like an old school racer," McLaren driver development spearhead Warren Hughes told The Race.
"He's not come from a situation where they've been able to pick and choose their path up financially. He's been restricted.
"So, and you can see it in his personality and in his driving, it's very much a results-driven approach.
"He has to perform to get to the next level and I think that's reflected in how hungry he really is.
"So I think one of his big strengths is that raw hunger. It's probably our job to keep that at a level that doesn't get him into trouble too much."
Honing the 'killer instinct'
McLaren has worked closely with Dunne's F2 team Rodin - formerly Carlin, which ran the likes of Lando Norris - to help smooth out those rough edges.
Some junior teams can be reluctant to allow F1 teams properly inside the team to support their junior drivers, but Rodin has no such issue, offering Hughes extensive access.
Rodin sporting director Benn Huntingford said, "Alex tends to be a bit all or nothing", but believes that approach is working out well for him.
"It's one of the reasons we wanted him in the team," Huntingford said.
"It's much easier to take a fast driver who perhaps needs a bit of experience than to try and push someone who maybe hasn't got the ability.
"It's a much easier job from our side to try and get the most of their talent, rather than create the talent. Alex has that talent."
Hughes believes Dunne's approach is "part of the essence of what makes him the driver that he is.
"Some of the overtaking moves he does others can't even imagine doing, so there's a real killer racer's instinct there. That's what I mean, he's like an old-school racer.
"And it's at some point you've got to add a little bit of a layer of experience to it. It's a cliché to say he's a bit all or nothing. I think it's a little bit more nuanced than that.
"I think he's still a work in progress. He's not the finished article. So that bit is just adding that little bit, without taking that raw hunger away.
"His development will continue because his approach is the right one. He's very methodical, and he's very realistic about his own level.
"But in the heat of the moment, he's got a killer instinct and we don't want to take that away."
Hughes has been pivotal
Warren Hughes - a Le Mans 24 Hours class winner and British Touring Car Championship race winner in the 2000s - has played a pivotal role in Dunne's development over the last couple of years.
McLaren tasked him with coaching Dunne when it signed him last year. He was racing in Formula 3 but had a tricky season, finishing 14th with MP Motorsport.
Hughes saw great potential within Dunne beyond those results and told McLaren to keep backing Dunne when he stepped up to F2 with Rodin.
"I've said many times that I think my current position in where I stand with McLaren, would have been a lot different if I didn't have Warren last year," Dunne said.
"With how F3 went, if myself and my dad had to explain to McLaren weekend-in weekend-out why it wasn't going to plan, then I would just look like some young kid who's not happy with how his season's going and thinks it's everyone else's fault.
"So I think [it helped] having someone like Warren in my corner, who not only backed me and believed in me, but also has a very good understanding of racing, so he himself can see the little things that are not going quite right and what I'm also doing right and also what I'm doing wrong.
"Last year didn't show what I'm capable of but of course, there are still things that I could have done better in different scenarios.
"He's definitely been a massive help and I think a lot of the position of where I'm in now is thanks to him for being in my corner all of last year."
That's proven to be the right call - and Rodin has proved a much better environment, with Dunne blowing McLaren's expectations of a race win and top four in the championship well out of the water. He's already won twice, led the standings for much of the year so far, and arrives at Silverstone this weekend second in the points to series veteran Richard Verschoor.
Hughes has been a big part of that. Not just being a driver coach to Dunne but fighting his corner, working closely with Rodin and helping him to deal with the added pressure and responsibility of representing a title-leading F1 team.
"[Hughes] is a very experienced driving coach who is able to understand the areas where the drivers need to work more, being able to correctly race with the racing team and for us it's extremely important, because wherever and whenever we go racing we want to race as McLaren meaning that our drivers are our first ambassadors and they need to share the same values," McLaren's chief business affairs officer Alessandro Alunni Bravi said.
"They need to have the same culture for the work that we have within the McLaren F1 team or the IndyCar team.
"So, Warren is the guarantor, not just of the performance, but also this kind of behaviour that each McLaren driver needs to have in every activity, in every category."
He's improving faster than ever
Often, dovetailing a Formula 2 programme with growing F1 responsibilities can be challenging and there can sometimes be a cost to the F2 prospects.
This isn't the case for Dunne. While hopping from F2 practice to F1 qualifying and back to F2 for qualifying in Austria almost left him losing it in the high-speed corners when he was back in the F2 car, he was still just over a couple of tenths of a second from pole position. And by the feature race, he and race winner Verschoor were the two quickest drivers.
The days Dunne has spent in McLaren's simulator - including providing at-base race support for the team's Canadian GP efforts - has benefitted his F2 programme too.
"There was a couple of things at the beginning of the year in F2 that as a driver in terms of the technique of driving F2 I kind of struggled to get my head around a little bit, and when I went to do F1 sim I kind of told the engineers what it was that I was struggling with," Dunne explained.
"Alongside the plan of helping me prep for testing in FP1, a part of the plan was also to try and help me iron out the little things that I needed to do better.
"The way they went about that helped me massively. it was before Bahrain. And then I went to Bahrain after doing that, and I won straight away.
"So I think it goes to show how good of a job they've done at helping me develop. And I think for me, that's a very big thing.
"Naturally through the year you always improve but I don't feel like I've ever improved this quickly."
Stella has helped him
Dunne's experienced the highs and lows of the added spotlight this year.
While his FP1 bow drew him plenty of praise in Austria, one month prior, he received a torrent of social media abuse for triggering a multi-car pile-up at the start of the Monaco feature race - abuse so bad it prompted Dunne to remove social media from his phone after the race.
Dunne accepted after the clash that he needed to adjust his approach and he credited a chat with McLaren F1 team principal Andrea Stella for helping him.
"[After Monaco] II had quite a long meeting with Andrea and he was fully behind me and gave me some advice on things to focus on," Dunne recalled.
"I think it's just a matter of accepting where you are. There's no point in trying to force the issue because that's when things can go wrong. So if you know you're in a position to go for it and you're comfortable that it'll pay off, then that's fine.
"But there's also times where you kind of need to just accept it and maybe lose two or three places to try and gain a couple back so that you end up finishing the race with some good points.
"That's the approach I took into Barcelona after speaking with Andrea. And that's the approach that I'll continue to have."
Stella was very complimentary of the job Dunne did in FP1 with Dunne saying, "it's really nice, he's been fully behind me" of Stella's support.
"I've had a couple of meetings with him this year when things have been good and when things have been less good," Dunne said.
"Both times I can feel that he's fully behind me and he really believes that I'm capable of doing good things.
"And every time I've spoken to him I've always left more relaxed. Going into Barcelona after what happened, there were probably a couple of things that I wanted to iron out and speak about to feel a little bit better going into the weekend. And after speaking to Andrea, going into the race weekend straight away, I felt much more relaxed, much more calm and I felt then very comfortable going into the weekend again as normal.
"So for me that was something that was very, very important and something that I appreciate a lot. But not only Andrea, also the whole team. [On Friday] Zak [Brown] messaged me as well.
"McLaren is really like a family environment. I think how they help drivers develop is very, very impressive and I think it's shown with me that it's been a massive help. So to have the full support from everyone and know that they're all behind me for me makes me feel a lot more relaxed."
What's next for Dunne?
Dunne will receive further Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) outings later this year and McLaren's likely to use him again to help satisfy the requirement to run rookies in four practice sessions during the year - Pato O'Ward will take one of the spots for the Mexican GP but that still leaves at least two vacant opportunities.
Dunne's main focus will be securing the Formula 2 title this year. A plank wear disqualification cost him second place in the Austrian feature race, so his deficit to Verschoor stands at 24 points.
But he's shown the consistent speed needed to be a title contender over the second half of the season.
As for what Dunne does in 2026, that remains an open question, one McLaren isn't ready to commit to yet.
"Alex is an integral part of our Formula 1 team already, he's working with the F1 team, we trust him because we gave him the opportunity to do FP1," Bravi said.
"He's already part of the team. We need to be focused on this season, it's also very important, also for Alex to not lose the focus on the target.
"The target is to be successful in F2, to continue this development and in the future there will be possibility for drivers like Alex that show talent, consistency and also a kind of approach that is very mature, is professional, and is the one Formula 1 teams are looking for.
"Now the target was to do a proper session FP1 here in Austria. He performed well, we've ticked all boxes with him. Second target is to continue the season in F2, to be consistent, avoid mistakes and show the pace he's shown so far.
"Then it's working with the F1 team, he'll work with our F1 team in the future, we're working together."
McLaren has Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri locked down until at least the end of 2026 (Norris) and 2027 (Piastri), so there's no immediate room for him within McLaren.
But Dunne's on the kind of trajectory where McLaren will have already been asking itself where it can find room for him - rest assured, all of its rivals will be after a debut like that.
