Ireland's Alex Dunne (Rodin Motorsport) continues to lead the FIA Formula 2 championship, the main support class to F1 race weekends, after a fifth-place finish in today's F2 feature race in Barcelona.
Dunne started the second race of the weekend in Spain in eighth place on the grid, following a three-place penalty for an incident in the free practice session in which he collided with Victor Martins.
The Offlay teenager eventually finished fifth with Britain's Arvid Lindblad converting pole position into his maiden Formula 2 feature race victory, also giving his Spanish team Campos Racing their first win on home soil in the Championship.
Dunne, who is part of McLaren’s driver development programme, picked up a bonus point on offer for registering the fastest lap of the race.
Up ahead Lindblad was never threatened, leading home PREMA Racing’s Sebastián Montoya who finished second and MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor in third, after a late safety car was withdrawn on the final lap.
Dunne’s fifth place came after his incredible drive in Saturday’s sprint race, where he swept aside grid penalties to climb from the back of the grid in 19th place to finish second and take the overall championship lead after six rounds.
The Offalyman did had wait to see if the race stewards took any retrospective action for an alleged yellow flag infringement late on in the feature race, but he was exonerated and kept his fifth place finish and with it, the championship lead.
The 19-year-old sits atop the F2 series standings ahead of this month’s Austrian Grand Prix on 87 points, three clear of Richard Verschoor with Lindblad a further five points back in third.
Speaking after his astonishing sprint race second placed finish Dunne said: "I think we’ve seen over the past couple of weekends that the pace is more than there, but sometimes you just need to accept that you are where you are, instead of trying to go for more. That is something we need to dial in a bit more in the coming weekends."
The Irish driver also elaborated further on the online abuse he recieved in the wake of his crash at the start of the last round in Monaco.
"I got a lot of stuff after Monaco. Normally, I'm not someone who reads things and gets annoyed about it. But I think an hour after the race, I just deleted all of social media from my phone because I think I've never received such bad messages in my life.
"I think a lot of the stuff I got was really, really bad and quite upsetting, to be honest."
