{"id":193201,"date":"2025-10-06T11:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T11:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/193201\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T11:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T11:16:11","slug":"why-is-alex-dunne-leaving-resurgent-mclaren-what-you-missed-at-the-singapore-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/193201\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is Alex Dunne leaving resurgent McLaren? What you missed at the Singapore GP"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the surprise stumble in Azerbaijan, McLaren<\/a> got over the line at the second time of asking to win the constructors\u2019 championship in Singapore. But that wasn\u2019t the only talking point to come out of the paddock during the race weekend at Marina Bay.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

McLaren seals the first deal<\/p>\n

If you rewind two years, the Formula 1 world was collectively scratching its head at how Red Bull<\/a> had finally been beaten for the first time all season, as Singapore provided the one time it failed to win a race.<\/p>\n

\"McLaren<\/p>\n

McLaren celebrates its 10th constructors\u2019 title<\/p>\n

\n McLaren\n <\/p>\n

Amid such dominance, you would have been called crazy to predict back-to-back constructors\u2019 championships would follow for McLaren. It\u2019s a remarkable turnaround, but as someone with significant knowledge of the team from his time as one of its drivers between 1996 and 2004, David Coulthard<\/a> believes it should be viewed as the reawakening of a giant.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is more surprising in many ways is how far they\u2019ve dropped, not how far they\u2019ve\u00a0come,\u201d Coulthard said. \u201cBecause if you look at the DNA of McLaren, they\u2019ve been winning since they were created,\u00a0and obviously the period I was there came off the back of a great period of success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey went into a bit of a doldrums, which if you look at whenever McLaren have had those\u00a0doldrums, it\u2019s tended to follow whenever they\u2019ve got involved in another business, so the downturn\u00a0was when they launched the F1, that\u2019s become one of the most iconic cars, and then latterly\u00a0when they got into SLRs and stuff like that, but anyway, put that cycle away, what does\u00a0that tell us?\u00a0It\u2019s about focus, isn\u2019t it? And it\u2019s about people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the name above the door guaranteed success, these guys in red would\u00a0win everything, because they\u2019re the most famous name in Ferrari<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what I think Zak [Brown]\u00a0has to be given credit for is the restructuring, a lot of good people there that may have\u00a0been in other places before, but you bring a wealth of knowledge and they\u2019ve got a proven\u00a0track record, and the results have followed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that McLaren\u2019s success could be the only focal point surrounding the team on Sunday, as a close moment between Lando Norris<\/a> and Oscar Piastri<\/a> hinted at growing tensions that Coulthard is hoping to see turn into a full-on fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they have two great young drivers. They\u2019re going\u00a0through the inevitable pains of trying to manage them. Ultimately, if you tame a racing driver,\u00a0you take away the lap time, so the moments that we all remember in the history of the\u00a0great battles between team-mates \u2013 great if it\u2019s a rivalry between teams \u2013 are [when they fight].<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking\u00a0forward to them winning the constructors\u2019 and then gloves being off for the rest of the\u00a0season.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Intrigue around Dunne\u2019s departure<\/p>\n

While McLaren was celebrating that championship victory, the weekend had started with a slightly surprising development relating to one of its junior drivers.<\/p>\n

\"Alexander<\/p>\n

Dunne is seeking opportunities outside of McLaren now<\/p>\n

\n McLaren\n <\/p>\n

Since he first drove in a Formula 1 session at the Austrian Grand Prix, Alex Dunne had appeared to be another McLaren success story. Only added to the team\u2019s driver development programme in 2024, Dunne had already impressed as a rookie in Formula 2, but a strong FP1 outing at the Red Bull Ring really caught the eye.<\/p>\n

The intervening months have seen his F2 title challenge stall somewhat, but Dunne is still in the mix, and had been attracting interest from Red Bull. While that was deemed preliminary contact after the summer break, it appears to have been enough to convince the Irishman and his team that a move of programme could be beneficial.<\/p>\n

Sources indicate McLaren offered Dunne future opportunities and had attempted to keep him within the set-up, but those were deemed unacceptable from the driver\u2019s side and when it was clear an agreement wouldn\u2019t be reached, McLaren opted to cut all ties immediately rather than continue funding his career.<\/p>\n

If Dunne does end up joining Red Bull, it\u2019s likely to see him remain in F2 and target a race seat at Racing Bulls<\/a> in 2027 \u2013 with Arvid Lindblad moving up next year \u2013 but if not, then it could prove a costly bridge to burn. It\u2019s the sort of difficult decision junior drivers are often faced with in order to try and be in the right place at the right time to get an opportunity in F1.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Doohan down at Haas<\/p>\n

The driver market is relatively quiet this year with George Russell<\/a> and Kimi Antonelli<\/a> staying at Mercedes<\/a> \u2013 even if actual contracts have yet to be finalised \u2013 and the majority of the movement likely to come around the Red Bull seats, but there are still some interesting switches that could take place.<\/p>\n

\"Jack<\/p>\n

Doohan doesn\u2019t appear to have a future at Alpine<\/p>\n

\n Grand Prix Photo\n <\/p>\n

One of them revolves around Jack Doohan<\/a>, who is assessing his options, having not been given another chance to prove himself at Alpine after he was ruthlessly dropped after the Miami Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

The greater patience with Franco Colapinto<\/a> \u2013 making 10 starts and suffering one DNS compared to Doohan\u2019s six, despite similar results \u2013 has suggested to the Australian that his future might be better served elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Haas has emerged as a potential destination, with technical partner Toyota providing a link to a Super Formula race seat that could sit alongside a reserve role and TPC running. Doohan\u2019s father \u2013 motorcycle legend Mick \u2013 was seen in long discussions with Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu in the Singapore paddock.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

American focus on the horizon<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve mentioned how talks over American broadcast rights have been progressing previously in this column, and there\u2019s a natural time for it to become more of a focal point for the sport.<\/p>\n

\"Scene<\/p>\n

F1\u2019s US market continues to grow<\/p>\n

\n Grand Prix Photo\n <\/p>\n

With the next swing of races taking place in the Americas \u2013 and two of the next four in the United States \u2013 the intention has been to conclude matters and be able to make an announcement when F1 is more in the limelight in that region.<\/p>\n

All of the indications are that Apple will take over from ESPN, and that is likely to mark a shift in F1\u2019s global positioning as it will open doors to other opportunities. The wide range of Apple devices that exist \u2013 external to any broadcast offering \u2013 could then provide a platform for F1 to reach more people.<\/p>\n

It might be part of a US deal, but if the expected confirmation does materialise in the coming weeks, then there could well be a knock-on impact in the UK and other regions, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the surprise stumble in Azerbaijan, McLaren got over the line at the second time of asking to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,37177,85],"class_list":["post-193201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-singapore-gp","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}