{"id":407205,"date":"2026-01-12T00:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T00:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/407205\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T00:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T00:10:13","slug":"alex-dunne-explains-the-right-decision-to-quit-mclaren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/407205\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Dunne explains the ‘right decision’ to quit McLaren"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Dunne has explained why he chose to quit the McLaren Driver Development programme, the Formula 2<\/a> star describing it as the \u201cright decision\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Irish youngster took fifth place in the F2 standings with Rodin Motorsport, with two race wins in the process, under the wing of the Woking-based squad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dunne\u2019s performances enabled him to be handed the chance to get behind the wheel of its title-winning MCL39 on Formula 1 race weekends, driving in FP1 in both Austria and Italy.<\/p>\n

But sensationally, the 20-year-old left the programme in October, as rumours swelled of a potential switch to rivals Red Bull.<\/p>\n

It has since been alleged that now-retired Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko made an arbitrary decision to sign Dunne, which was ultimately rejected.<\/p>\n

But whilst no move to Milton Keynes, or any other team\u2019s academy programme, has been forthcoming, Dunne is confident that he is in the best possible position to reach F1.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, there\u2019s a goal and a plan in place and that\u2019s to be a Formula 1 driver,\u201d he told\u00a0balls.ie.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Alex Dunne showed his pace in the McLaren MCL39 at both the Red Bull Ring and at Monza<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the options that I knew I had, the decision we made was one that had to be made to be in F1.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s as simple as that, it was actually my decision. When my dad and I were talking about it, he wasn\u2019t 100% sure. Normally, he\u2019s the one who is 100% sure!<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, I felt like it was the right decision. I\u2019m more than comfortable with that. I think, moving forward, we should be in an alright place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dunne will continue with Rodin Motorsport for the 2026 F2 season, which kicks off, along with F1, in Melbourne on the weekend of 6-8 March.<\/p>\n

There have been as of yet unconfirmed reports of talks between Dunne and Alpine, with Dunne\u2019s F2 rivals Leonardo Fornaroli and Richard Verschoor joining the McLaren programme.<\/p>\n

READ MORE \u2013 Ex-McLaren junior Alex Dunne in talks with Alpine for 2026 F1 role<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Dunne has explained why he chose to quit the McLaren Driver Development programme, the Formula 2 star…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,119009,817,132042,913,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-407205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dunne","tag-f1","tag-f2","tag-mclaren","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407205","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=407205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}