Irish driver Alex Dunne bagged his first win since Imola last year as he took a dominant victory in the 2026 F2 Azerbaijan GP Feature Race 1.
Starting on pole position, the 20-year-old led the field into turn 1 and slowly eased away from Martinius Stenshorne. Fortunately for the Rodin Motorsport driver, he had not pitted before the Safety Car appeared on lap 8 when Mari Boya stopped on track.
Although Ollie Goethe led after the Safety Car and red flag period, the German driver had not completed a mandatory stop. Dunne used DRS two laps after the restart to take the lead once more and pull away. Critically for the three-time F2 race winner, he also got a point for fastest lap.
Starting on the front row for Feature Race 2, the Alpine Junior could make it four consecutive podiums.
Dunne reflects on first win of 2026 F2 season in Feature Race 1 at Azerbaijan GP
Speaking in the post-race press conference to Pit Debrief and other media outlets, he explained how pleased he was to finally get a win this year.
“Yeah, it’s safe to say I’m pretty happy. I mean, it’s nice.
“To be honest, there were times in the year when I questioned whether or not it was even going to happen. So, I think for the pace to have been so strong so far this weekend, not only to have won but to have finished on the podium in the Sprint Race as well, I think so far we couldn’t have really asked for much more.
“The team have done a really good job in turning it around. The pace last weekend and the pace so far this weekend has been phenomenal.
“So I think as nice as it is for myself, just as much credit should go to them as it should to me.”
Race pace progress
Although overtaking was impossible in Madrid, the Irishman was pleased with the step made on his way to P2 in the Feature Race on that Sunday in Spain.
This weekend, so far, Rodin have been rapid. Dunne and Stenshorne bagged a pole each in qualifying, with the duo annexing the front row for both Feature Races.
Starting 9th and 10th in the Sprint, they came through brilliantly to 3rd and 4th. In Feature Race 1 at the 2026 F2 Azerbaijan GP, Alex Dunne and Martinius Stenshorne brought home a 1-2 for their team.
Asked if he thinks they have finally got on top of their degradation issues that plagued them throughout the European summer, the driver of car #15 was cautiously optimistic.
“For now. We’ll have to wait and see. I believe [the answer is] yes.
“And I think the pace we’ve had today is kind of, I wouldn’t say where I expected to be, but I didn’t expect to struggle. I expected to be able to fight for where we were starting.
“But at the same time, Baku and Madrid are two very different circuits to everywhere else. At street circuits, you need to have a lot of confidence as a driver, you need to be comfortable with pushing it up to the walls and I think maybe some of us are more comfortable and more confident at doing that than others.
”For sure the car has been very good but street tracks can be a bit of an outlier sometimes.
”So we’ll have to wait and see if we end up in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, and we’ll have a full read on if we’ve completely fixed it.
”But in saying that, from what we’ve done today, I think there was a couple of issues that needed to be ironed out after the Sprint Race. And the changes we made worked perfectly, which is kind of how it was last year. Whenever we needed to make a change we made one and then it worked, which hasn’t been that straightforward in other rounds this year.
”Hopefully we’re back to our normal ways.”
Keeping it calm behind Goethe
The biggest hurdle Alex Dunne had to clear in the race outside of the start was passing Ollie Goethe. With only three drivers on softs as most went for the supersofts to get them out of the way early on, the MP Motorsport driver cycled to the front through the Safety Car period, and he held it when the red flag was thrown.
After the race resumed, the Rodin man took a couple of laps, waited for DRS and then pounced to take the lead.
Asked by Pit Debrief how tricky it was to manage it as Beganovic and Stenshorne were making big moves behind him, the Irishman always felt in control.
“I knew Ollie was on a different strategy and his tyres were a lot less fresh than ours were. So I knew it was kind of going to be a matter of time as to when I would get past him.
“I think after the last restart it only took me two laps or so. I kind of waited until the DRS was enabled and then at that point then I went for it. It was a pretty straightforward move. It didn’t really put me under too much pressure.
“I could see Martinius was making moves behind. I could see on the screens around the track and I could see in my mirrors as well that he had got past Dino and Rafa. So I knew what was going on.
“But I think for the most part it was pretty under control.”
Moving much closer to the championship lead
A P2, P3 and P1 in his last three starts, along with mistakes from Nikola Tsolov and Rafael Câmara, has moved Dunne to within 8 points of the Brazilian in the 2026 F2 standings. Due to the uncertainty of Qatar and Abu Dhabi taking place, tomorrow could be the final race of this year.
It is a remarkable turnaround considering he trailed the Bulgarian by 59 points following the Monza round earlier this month.
“We’re solidly back in the fight which is really nice.
“To be honest, three or four rounds ago I completely switched off from the championship and as far as I was concerned there was no way of even getting close. But now we’re more than close.
“So yeah, I think game on and I’ll try and get the most out of it tomorrow.”
Less risks paying off
Through parts of 2025 and earlier this year, the 2022 British F4 champion was involved in a number of incidents. Since spinning Dürksen out of the F2 Sprint Race in Canada, Alex Dunne has balanced risk versus reward very nicely. His points tally has been consistently added to, aside from Hungary because of the suspension failure in qualifying.
While any racer will try to take a win if the opportunity arises, the 20-year-old explained that there has not been much point fighting very hard at times this year when Rodin have struggled in race trim.
“I guess it has its pros and cons.
“I think a lot of me being more calm and not going for any big moves, most of the time I was too slow to do anything anyway. When the pace is really strong and you’re constantly moving forward, you’re naturally always in a position to go for more moves, and you have the opportunity to go for more risky moves as well.
“I think previously when we were struggling with pace, there’s no point in doing anything crazy because you’re just going to put yourself even further backwards than where you already are.
“If the pace was really strong and I wasn’t in the lead and we were fighting for the lead, I’d probably go back to being a little bit more on the aggressive side of things. But at the same time, I think there hasn’t been much need for it which is a good thing.
“The consistency has been really strong. I picked up a lot of points recently and thankfully today I didn’t really have to do a whole lot of racing. I just got to sit out in the lead and control the race which was nice.”
Alex Dunne and his mega speed on street circuits leads to an F2 win on one
In 2023, Alex Dunne shocked the Motorsport world by finishing 2nd in the Qualifying Race at Macau on his first visit to a street circuit. The Irishman laid down a marker.
Even if he was yet to win on a street track before yesterday’s victory in Feature Race 1 at the 2026 F2 Azerbaijan GP, Alex Dunne has been right up there and in the mix at virtually every single one.
Asked by Pit Debrief about his strengths and speed on a street track, the Rodin Motorsport driver initially quipped: “Big balls.”
He then went into detail, explaining how his car set-up preferences suit these type of venues. Much like Max Verstappen today and Kimi Räikkönen in the past, the Irishman explained how he loves to have a very responsive front end, while he can live with the car a bit loose at the rear.
“I mean I think it’s just something I’ve always felt comfortable with; I think kind of putting the car on the limit, getting close to the walls.
“I think also in terms of car balance, having a car that’s kind of on-the-nose and you have the rear moving around, I think that always suits street circuits because you know all the corners are very tight. So the earlier you can get the car rotated the better it is. So then you end up putting the balance on the nose.
“I think in general it’s kind of always just suited me, the way you have to set up the car is the way I like the car everywhere. So the fact that it’s kind of the main direction for street circuits in specific I think suits me a little bit.
“And then as a driver I’ve always just felt comfortable driving on the limit and putting it close to the walls.”
Playing it carefully with teammate Stenshorne
Back in Australia as they fought for the lead early on in the Feature Race, Alex Dunne and Martinius Stenshorne had a collision and were both out on the spot. The Irishman took full responsibility for his error.
Dunne opened up about it and admitted that they had a reminder from their team manager Benn Huntingford after taking 1-2s in qualifying on Thursday. Both drivers did a perfect job on Saturday.
“Yeah, very similar to Martinius.
“I think when we came back in from qualifying the first thing our team manager said was ‘please don’t crash into each other.’
“I mean it’s fairly straightforward. Both of us know what we’re doing.
“What happened in Melbourne, I think when you’re teammates and you’re fighting at the front, something’s bound to happen at some point. But I think for us we just got it out of the way straight away at the beginning of the year.
“I think since then we’ve worked really well together and the pace has been really strong, and we’ve both put ourselves in a good position for this weekend as well.
“So hopefully both of us can have a good result tomorrow.”
Alex Dunne believes a close Feature Race 2 in prospect at the 2026 F2 Azerbaijan GP
With practice, qualifying and two races completed already this weekend, the 2023 GB3 runner-up expects the field to close up tomorrow as they work on car set-up and get closer to the Irishman, the Norwegian and Rafael Câmara. Championship contender Nikola Tsolov faces a big challenge considering his struggles so far this weekend with pace, as well as mistakes and bad luck.
“To be honest, I would probably expect tomorrow to be one of the hardest races of the year because everyone has done so many laps through the weekend that realistically your car balance, driver, driving things like that, you should be nearly maximised as to what you can get because we’ve done so many laps now.
“I think through a normal race weekend if teams are struggling in quali they improve themselves for the sprint race. If they struggle in the Sprint Race they improve themselves for the Feature Race. So everyone kind of naturally progresses and gets a little bit better through the weekend.
“I think you know now we’ve had a lot of opportunity to improve and maximise on that side of things. I think the the deficit in pace maybe that you saw this morning in the Sprint Race and now in the Feature Race, I think everything will probably close up.
“And I think in terms of pace and stuff it should be quite tight tomorrow.”
