Despair Down Under for Dunne as he crashes out early in Melbourne

The Offaly man, like his Rodin teammate, saw his season-opening challenge ended all too early

Sun, 08 Mar, 2026 - 15:14

Martin Walsh

It wasn't the start that Rodin Motorsport wanted or expected as the F2 season got underway in Melbourne when their participation in the Feature Race ended at the beginning of the third lap.

Fighting for the lead, Offaly's Alex Dunne and his Rodin Motorsport Norwegian team mate Martinius Stenshorne both crashed out — a very disappointing outcome to their season's opener.

Following the race that was won by Bulgarian Nikola Tslov, Dunne received a post-race penalty after the stewards, who heard from both drivers and a team representative, that Dunne had been predominantly responsible for the collision. As a result the Clonbullogue driver was given a 10-second time penalty and in accordance with the regulations, will be converted into a grid drop of five places for the next Feature Race.

Dunne, who announced that he has joined the Alpine F1 Academy team and raced in their team colours, began the weekend well with third place in Saturday's Sprint Race. From P8 he made a great dive down the inside of two drivers to move to fifth on Lap 21 that then became fourth on the final lap. A five second penalty for his team mate Stenshorne promoted Dunne to the final spot on the podium with Stenshorne dropping to tenth. The race was won by Paraguay's Joshua Duerksen. On the post-race interview Dunne "I mean, finishing third is good, but I don't really think we necessarily had the pace to finish third. I think a lot of it was just using my experience from last year is probably what got me P3 today and not necessarily pace, so we have a little bit of work to do. I think I knew when I was behind Martinius, the team told me he had a five-second penalty, so at that point I kind of backed off a little bit and started saving the tyres."

In the Feature Race, Stenshorne took the lead from P2 but Dunne (P3) was right on his heels into the first corner. On the second lap Dunne dived down the inside of his team mate at Turn 11 and they were side by side through to Turn 13 with Stenshorne just holding off the Offaly driver.

Then, on the run to Turn 1 on Lap 3 Dunne slipstreamed the Norwegian and appeared to have secured the move only for contact between them which brought some damage and retirement from the race. The Safety Car was deployed to recover the two stricken Rodin cars and Tsolov went on to become the first Bulgarian to win an F2 race. The second round at the Bahrain International Circuit is on April 11/12.

In Formula 3, Derry's Fionn McLaughlin, racing with the Hitech outfit, was 15th in the Sprint Race and 14th in the Feature Race on his category debut in only his second full season in single seater racing.

Meanwhile, Carryduff's Jonny Greer and his Sligo co-driver Niall Burns (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) dominated the Race & Rally Bishopscourt Rally, the opening round of the Brown & Brown Northern Ireland Rally Championship. At the conclusion of the eight-stage event over the County Down circuit racing complex, they were 8.5s ahead of the VW Polo GTi R5 of reigning champions Donegal's Aaron McLaughlin/Darren Curran with Dromore's Stuart Biggerstaff and Askeaton's Anthony Nestor (Ford Fiesta R5) 12.s further behind in third.

Another former champion Derek McGarrity (Hyundai i20 N Rally2) led after the first stage — 0.5s ahead of Greer, who then punched in six consecutive stage wins to take victory over McLaughlin, who was quickest on the final stage. McGarrity finished fifth — 16s behind the similar car of Monaghan's Sam Moffett.

Elsewhere, Derry's Marty McCormack (BMW E30 M3) was the top Irish driver in the Costa Brava Rally, a counting round of the European Historic Rally Championship, finishing third overall. The 13-stage event was won by Jari Matti Latvala (Toyota Celica ST185), who was quickest on all bar two of the stages. Donegal's Donagh Kelly/Rory Kennedy (BMW M3 E30) finished tenth and the Kerry/Cork pairing of Alan Ring/Adrian Deasy (Subaru Impreza 555) were fifteenth. Dubliner Michael Cullen (BMW M3 E30) and co-driver Lorcan Moore crashed on Stage 10, fortunately, they were unhurt.