Rodin’s pace ‘nice to see’ says Dunne after topping Monza Free Practice

Alexander Dunne was fastest in this morning’s Monza Free Practice, and while he was happy with his pace, he was slightly surprised by the gap to the rest of the field.

The Rodin Motorsport driver was in good form on Formula 2’s return from the summer break, consistently finding himself at the top of the timesheets after each lap.

Dunne completed a 1:31.957 with his final attempt of the Red Flag curtailed session, a time that was quick enough to lead MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe by 0.170s.

But it was the 0.506s gap to Nico Varrone in third that caught the Irishman’s eye, although he does not expect that to be the case come Qualifying.

“It's a good way to start,” said Dunne. “It's only Free Practice, so it doesn't really mean a whole lot, but the pace was good.

“I'm quite surprised by the gap from me to P3, that it was half a second. But then from P3 to P10 was two tenths, which is more what you would expect.

“It's nice to see that we have a good amount of pace, but I imagine it's going to get a lot closer. I don't expect it to be that comfortable in quali.

“There's a couple of things we can improve on, but I'm sure the other teams will find some stuff that they can do better for quali as well, and we're on a different compound.

“We didn't get to do many laps, but the laps that we did do were good ones. So it was fun.”

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While the change from the Softs to Supersofts is expected to be a major factor, the battle for track position could be as well, with drivers looking to find a tow ahead of their laps.

There was plenty of jostling for places during Free Practice, but Dunne was happy to have avoided it, and to have kept his session clean.

“It wasn't too bad,” he said of the traffic in the session. “I was in a good place on track, so I avoided all the chaos and the mess, and I just got to do my own thing and focus on driving rather than getting stuck in a car park in a traffic jam.

“So, it was good. I'm happy, the car felt really good, and I felt like I was driving well as well. Usually, most of the time, when we put those two things together, the end result is pretty good. So, if we can have a good quali, that'd be nice.”

When asked what the keys will be for Qualifying, Dunne responded: “I think it's just to have a good tow, but you need to have a good tow behind someone who is fast.

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“If you put yourself behind someone who is a second off, you're going to be in trouble by the end of the lap. So, I think finding yourself in a good position with a strong tow behind someone who can keep the pace up through the lap as well so that you don't find yourself in a difficult position come the end of the lap.

“This is what we managed to do pretty well on all three push laps that I had today. We were all in the right track position, which is nice. So, I think we've prepped ourselves well for quali and we know where we need to go, which is nice.”