Favouring oversteer and adapting between Qualifying and the race: How I Race with Alexander Dunne

8 April 2026

Alexander Dunne is back for a second season in FIA Formula 2, after a stellar rookie campaign in 2025 with Rodin Motorsport where he achieved two Feature Race victories.

So ahead of the year, we sat down with the Alpine Academy member to get a sense of his driving style, and what makes him the driver that you see on track in the latest instalment of How I Race.

OVERSTEER VS UNDERSTEER

“Historically I like the car to be on the nose as much as possible, so a lot of front end. I think when you get into it more and more and when you get more comfortable with the car, I think having more front and more oversteer is always going to be quicker.

“I think even if one driver fully maximises oversteer and the other one fully maximises understeer, oversteer will always be quicker.

“For me it's always been a natural thing when I started driving, I just preferred how the car felt. I get along with cars a lot better that are easy to rotate. It's just what I prefer.

Dunne spoke about his preference for having more oversteer on his car than understeer

“I think whatever you're given you have to drive and that's what you've got to do, but I think normally all the way through the ranks I've just preferred it to have an easily rotatable car.”

COMMUNICATING WITH THE TEAM AFTER PRACTICE

“I think whatever happens if I leave Free Practice and the car feels really good, I'm not going to tell them to change it. I only tell them to change it because the car isn't good enough after Free Practice.

“I think I'm always pretty comfortable in that sense, but being comfortable in that decision is also about trusting your team. If you're in a team where you don't fully believe in the decisions they're going to make and you're worried about making the wrong ones, then that's when you have the concern of maybe it's not a good idea.

“I think you have to build that element of trust in the relationship with your engineer, but from a driving point of view I've always been very comfortable in changing stuff before you go out.”

MAIN FOCUS AT TESTING

“Half the time to be honest, especially in the testing we had in Abu Dhabi and the testing in Barcelona, within reason most of the lap time you see is irrelevant.

Dunne also spoke about what he does in the car to prepare for the season

“I think especially with race runs, people can be on new tyres, old tyres, use DRS, not use DRS, and they could be on less fuel, so you never know.

“So I think all of it is down to feel, looking through the data with the team and then also having the team's opinion as well. Nine times out of ten, if the lap time isn't perfect, but you feel good and you look through the data with the team and the team are happy, then when everyone equalises, you're going to be fast.

“So I think most of it is just focusing on what you're doing and your run plan and making sure that the car is doing what you want and need it to do.”

IMPROVING FROM LAST YEAR

“I think by the end of last year, I felt like I was pretty on top of everything, I felt like quali was good, race pace was good, I think now it's just putting everything I've learned all together in one year.

“Qualifying wasn't bad last year, it was good. I think race pace is the strong suit, but I think qualifying is still good. We still had a big pole margin at Spa, I put it on pole at Monaco, so the qualifying performances and speed in general was really good, but I think just in races it was a little bit easier.”

The Irishman spoke of the importance of trusting in his team on a race weekend

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN QUALI AND THE RACE

“In qualifying, naturally because the grid is so close, you have to work a little bit harder for it. I think in the race runs, it was just a bit easier and I think I have a better understanding of deg and exactly what the car was doing through a race run.

“I think for me it comes very naturally, and it’s the exact same thing in quali, but quali is a lot closer, so you just have to extract more out of it.

“Quali is just about feel. I think in race runs, the tyres are changing every lap, the balance of the car is changing every lap, and you have brake bias as a tool to manipulate what the car is doing.

“So I think if you're doing something in Turn 5 on one lap and you find it to be really good, three laps later when the tyres go away, it might not work anymore.

“It’s just adapting and knowing what you need to change through the run, and I think that's something I've always been pretty strong at. It’s just about the general feeling you have with the car and what the car is doing, and I think if you have a good understanding of that, then naturally it will always be a bit easier.”