"Alex Dunne is becoming an absolute megastar".
Potentially portentous praise indeed. Three weeks ago, that enthusiastic endorsement emanated from the commentary box during the qualifying race at the iconic street circuit that plays host to the prestigious Macau Grand Prix.
The Formula Three category at the Guia Circuit on the coastline south of China, has often put the spotlight on rising talent.
Michael Schumacher and the late, great Ayrton Senna, who went on to win ten Formula One world championships between them, are forever carved into the list of race winners, while 13-time F1 grand prix winner David Coulthard paved his route towards F1 by triumphing in the 1991 edition that also featured another future elite level stalwart in Rubens Barrichello.
So for an Irish driver to make a mark there and to be tagged as an "absolute megastar" carries huge significance for fans of motorsport in this country.
Just a week earlier, Offaly native Dunne had celebrated his 18th birthday and only days before that did he begin to digest the fact that he would even have the opportunity to tackle the Macau Grand Prix.
"To be honest, I had no expectations. I got the call up to do the race a week and a half before and I thought, 'Okay, this is going to be pretty tough,'" said Dunne as he joined RTÉ Sport this week to reflect on his rapid progress, a memorable 2023 and his plans for a future that posits F1 as his ultimate goal.
"There were F2 drivers on the grid, Formula E drivers on the grid, a lot of F1 academy juniors on the grid and I think it's one of the hardest junior single-seater championships in the world, at one of the hardest tracks in the world.
"So I think if I expected that going into the race I was going to do really well, I think it would have been quite tough so I kind of just took it as it comes."
Watch the full interview here alongside fellow Irish drivers, 2023 Junior WRC champion William Creighton and Indy NXT's James Roe Jr:
Rolling into the hectic Macau venue as a first-timer, Dunne admits that it appeared to be "an intimidating place".
But that did not show in his performance in qualifying when he put his Hitech Pulse-Eight car sixth on the grid and among the select few drivers to go under two minutes and six seconds across the two sessions.
The 10-lap qualification race on the following day would be even more impressive. From his starting spot on the third row, Dunne made an outstanding getaway to climb up to third by the entry into the third corner at Lisboa.
"I was already fourth or fifth by turn two. I got a really good start and then I managed to out-brake Dino (Beganovic) around the outside into turn three. So to go from sixth to third in three corners, two of those not really being a corner, I think was an incredible start," he said.
"When I came out of turn three, I took a deep breathe and was like, 'Wow, I'm in a podium position here.'"
At the back of his mind, he had already considered the very real possibility that the attritional nature of a street circuit would result in a safety car being deployed as occurred on lap two, and with the challenge of coping with tyre degradation, Dunne kept his powder dry for the restart of the race which he described as "perfect".
It was a decision that paid off handsomely when the action got underway again as he caught out Gabriele Minì ahead of him and pulled off an overtake to snatch second place - the move which had the race commentator gushing with the aforementioned high praise - and held on to claim a podium and a front row starting spot for the following day's Grand Prix.
Unfortunately for Dunne, that main race on Sunday, 19 November would end on the opening lap after crashing into the barrier as he tried to go around the outside into turn three. The sense of disappointment was clearly etched on his face after he removed his helmet and made his way back towards the paddock.
He puts that outcome down to "inexperience" in terms of not getting enough heat into the tyres, but with a steely determination that it "definitely won't happen again".
However, on reflection, while the Grand Prix may have ended on a sour note, Dunne is taking plenty of positives from his first race weekend in an F3 car.
"The weekend as a whole I'm probably still a little bit sore after race two but honestly, I don't think I could be much happier with how it went," he said.
"To have never raced an F3 car before and to have only driven a car once before, to come away with second in quali and second in the quali race is something I don't think any rookie has ever done and being from Ireland, as well, I don't think there's a lot of drivers at that level from where we're from so to do that and achieve it on a world stage is super cool."
The one occasion he had driven an F3 car had come a month before during a test at Imola, a long-time F1 venue that currently hosts the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
He had just completed his season in the GB3 Championship where he finished as best rookie and second in the championship.
Once again, his ability to adapt to a last-minute call-up came to the fore as he made headlines on route to topping the timesheets in that weather-affected F3 session.
"I found out I was doing that F3 test pretty much during the last round of GB3 and then I went straight from Donington to Imola. It was definitely my most enjoyable day in a racing car ever," said Dunne.
"The car is a big jump, to be honest, from GB3. Physically, it's quite a jump, especially with the braking. Braking-wise, it's pretty much as hard as your leg can physically allow you to hit the pedal which is something I'd never experienced before.
"But it was a really good day. As something to experience in a test, I probably got the best of both worlds. It was dry, wet, mixed conditions and that's not something you'd get for your first rookie test which was nice to experience, and to be quickest at the end of the day in tricky conditions was pretty cool."
And aside from exciting Irish fans - support which Dunne was grateful for amidst the fervour over his Imola and Macau performances as well as last year's dominant run towards winning the British F4 championship title - it's also fueling anticipation over his potential at becoming the next Irishman to contend for a place in the dreamland that is Formula One.
With racing very much in his genes - his father Noel won multiple Formula Ford 1600 titles here in Ireland during the 1990s - he has had one goal since he was old enough to remember.
"Pretty much from the beginning of my karting career to now, the goal has always been Formula One," Dunne said.
"When I got a good idea of the path and when I got a little bit more into racing and more into F1 as well, I realised this is where I want to end up.
"So the goal since I've started has been Formula One and to be a Formula One world champion and my goal is still the same."
Of course, the challenge of getting there is immense and budgets and funding are a significant factor.
The next step he would hope to take would be into FIA Formula 3, a couple of rungs from F1, but for the moment plans aren't in place yet for what his 2024 will look like. However, he is confident that the adaptability he has regularly shown before will be a useful attribute in the challenges that await.
"We have no plans in place yet. The whole way through my racing career, at least in that year of what I've been racing, I've not had an idea of what I'm going to be racing the next year. It's always quite a last-minute thing on what we decide on what I'll be doing," he said.
"We're always trying to find the budget. So we're working until as late as possible until a few weeks before the race to decide what we're doing.
"There's no plans in place as of yet but we'll keep on working and we'll keep on chipping away at it to see what we can manage to do.
"I think a good trait that I've developed around my career is adaptability. Like I said, it's always been last-minute or we've always been limited through budget on how much we can test and how much I'm able to drive.
"So a natural progression I had through karting was I just had to jump in and adapt as quick as possible. We didn't have as much testing as we would've liked so I just had to learn things quicker and be thrown into the deep end, so as I got older and matured a little bit more, that slowly got better and better and now I'm at the point where I seem to be able to jump into things and adapt to them pretty quickly which is a good trait to have in my situation."
