For a third straight weekend in the 2026 F2 season, Alex Dunne qualified in the top 4 for the Feature Race, this time at the Canadian GP. However, a blocking penalty means he will start P11 and P6 for the contests on Saturday and Sunday.
In practice, the 20-year-old was fastest by 0.012s as Rodin delivered very strong pace early doors. Teammate Martinius Stenshorne was right behind him.
Come qualifying, however, it looked to have gone south for both drivers as they were P10 and P14 heading into the last runs after a second red flag.
Ultimately, though, they turned it around. Alex Dunne got into P3, with his Norwegian stablemate in P5. Thanks to the penalties handed out to the Irishman and Câmara, that has become P3 for Sunday.
Alex Dunne on the turnaround in 2026 F2 Canadian GP qualifying
Speaking to Pit Debrief and other media outlets post-qualifying, Dunne explained how a change to the downforce levels from practice made things far trickier. Reverting back before the final run was key to the steps made.
Unseen on the broadcast, Alex Dunne was heading for pole position but got impeded by Rafael Câmara at the hairpin; the Invicta racer was penalised for it. He believed this cost him 0.4s, with the driver from Offaly less than three tenths off polesitter Laurens van Hoepen.
“It was a pretty good session. Well, actually no, I’m saying that it was a difficult session until the final run.
“The team and I tried a different downforce configuration at the beginning of quali in comparison to what we ran in free practice. It just wasn’t working at the beginning.
“I felt like I got the most out of it, and at that point halfway through the session, I think the best we could have got was P10, which is where I was before my final run.
“With the two red flags, I thought we were going to end up in a difficult position, but we put the car back to what we knew was working from free practice.
“And up until I got impeded on my final lap, we would have been quite comfortably on pole without that.
“So yeah, I think the pace was good.”
Plenty of valuable learning in Canada practice
In most free practice sessions in F2 and F3, very little is learned for qualifying itself beacuse of various factors.
However, due to the dusty nature of the track in Canada through all of Friday, it was a different story this time around.
Alongside that, there was also less of a gap between the soft and supersoft tyre. When the soft and hard is brought to a race, the difference between the compounds can be seconds a lap, in both qualifying and the race. Circuit de Catalunya is a prime example of that.
“I think pretty much all of what we learned from free practice was able to be taken forward to FP, which I think is probably something that you don’t normally have.
“I think because the track was so dirty this morning, the deg was relatively low, we were able to do quite a lot of useful push laps.
“And also in saying that, on weekends where we have soft and super soft, the difference between the two compounds isn’t as big as you’d see in other weekends. In some weekends we have soft and hard, and in that there’s maybe two seconds of a difference over one push lap.
“So what you learn in FP on weekends like that is a lot less than what we would have had today.
“So no, I think we started FP in a really good place, and I think we were in a really good place in quali as well.
“Up until the point where I got held up in T10, I think when I looked at the data, I lost four tenths of my best lap, which is quite a substantial amount on a quali lap. So I think up until that point we were still looking very good.
“And what we learned in FP, we carried over well to quali. It was just a shame how it ended.”
The F2 Canadian GP proving to be a surprise for Alex Dunne
Expanding on the track not ramping up as much as he expected, the Rodin driver is wary of the problems that could cause in the Sprint and Feature on Saturday and Sunday.
“I think in general, probably the level of dust on the track, to be honest, I think even in qualifying, it was still very dirty and very dusty. I fully expected after an F1 Academy session, an F2 session and an F1 free practice, I expected it to be a lot more clean by the time F2 quali came. And I expected there to be a lot more grip and a lot more track evolution.
“But to be honest, it didn’t really change so much if you take into account the fact that we had a softer compound of tyres and less fuel on our final push in comparison to what we would be running in free practice, for example. There wasn’t really a huge jump in evolution on the track.
“So I think that’s probably something that surprised me the most. And going into the race, I think that is something that, you know, with how much dust there is offline and stuff, I think it’s something you need to be careful of.”
Balancing risk and reward in F2 qualifying
With the walls not far away in many sections of the track and a dusty circuit to deal with, crashes and mistakes are almost inevitable in Canada. F2 is, of course, racing here for the first tine as well.
Asked by Pit Debrief on managing it and not going over the limit, Alex Dunne says it is all about getting out there, pushing and doing laps — and not overthinking things.
“I think for me, it’s important to not try and think about how hard you want to push.
“When you start to think that it’s difficult or the track conditions are tricky or whatever, I think that’s probably when you start to focus on it too much and you overthink it a little bit.
“I think, for me, it’s just better to go out on track and drive to the limit. And as long as you’re comfortable with that, I think all will be fine.”
Dunne focused on getting a clean lap in 2026 F2 Canadian GP qualifying
As the session came to an end, Laurens van Hoepen produced a massive lap to take pole by over 0.2s. In the last sector, he was getting a massive tow from Rafael Câmara as he got into the perfect position. The Dutchman managed to be strong in the twisty sections as well in the dirty air.
On what should have been his pole lap, Alex Dunne was running around on his own before getting blocked by his former Italian F4 rival from 2022. Not getting involved in looking for tows was his aim.
“Yeah, very similar to Rafa. I think if you find yourself in a position where you can get a slipstream, then great.
“But I think for me, trying to find a clean lap is more important. In the end, we didn’t manage to find a clean one.
“But I think just looking for no dirty air and no interruptions is more important than looking for a tow.”
