Dunne pleased to be in points contention after Barcelona Feature showing

After a number of rounds where things didn’t quite pan out for rookie Alex Dunne, the MP Motorsport driver was a fixture in the points this weekend in Barcelona.The Irish driver earned himself a maiden FIA Formula 3 podium on the Saturday, before adding P7 in the Feature Race on Sunday to lift himself into the top 15 in the Drivers’ Championship.Reflecting on his weekend afterwards, the McLaren Driver Development talent says he was pleased with his and the team’s efforts, even if things weren’t quite perfect.“It was an alright weekend. P2 in the Sprint Race was nice but still overall, I was really happy with how it went. It’s kind of sad to say but it was my first time this year racing at the front so that was good to see how you have to drive differently at the front.“There are more opportunities you can make as a driver when being at the front and there’s a lot more you can do with the tyres. You don’t really have to worry as much about what’s going on behind you as you do when you’re in the midfield. So, it was nice to experience that.“The Feature Race - after the start I maximised what was possible. Everyone was stuck in a DRS train and there wasn’t much you could do. I feel like the pace advantage you needed to have needed to be super big to overtake and things only happened in the final five laps when the deg really kicked in and people lost DRS. Dunne was pleased to be on the podium but is targeting bigger things going forward“I think I capitalised on that along with when it started raining, so overall as a team, we struggled a little bit with pace, so I feel I maximised what was possible.“In the races it felt like the pace was good, but it felt like we were missing that last little bit, so I had to push harder than I would’ve liked to make up for it. So I think I maximised what we could’ve done this weekend.”Most importantly though with another four race weekends in the space of five weeks, Dunne says his performances and the team’s speed has brought some confidence heading to Spielberg.READ MORE: Rosin: ‘Fundamental to title chances’ to keep momentum up after Lindblad victory“It’s a nice confidence boost because Bahrain and Melbourne were difficult. After Qualifying in Imola I felt a little bit more relaxed and that we were there now, just had to match what we did but then we got disqualified so it was back to square one. And then Monaco was also difficult.“Now, although I feel like we lacked a little bit of pace this weekend, we did what was possible, didn’t have any bad luck and we did everything right, right place at the right time in the races. I had a bit of luck on my side this weekend with crashes ahead of me in both races, but I felt that as a team, we did a good job.”Though he now has his first podium under his belt, Dunne says that there is plenty of work to be done ahead of Round 6 in Austria, particularly around the team’s one-lap pace.The MP driver believes that Qualifying pace can be improved upon in the races to comeDunne believes that is where the Dutch outfit could find some extra performance to make points finishes and podiums a more regular occurrence.“It’s kind of difficult to say. In testing here, we were quite quick in Qualifying trim but then in the race weekend it changed quite a lot because it was unbelievably warm. So, we struggled a little bit and it was difficult to put the lap together, I was struggling with rear grip a bit.“That makes it difficult and harder to push and get everything out of it. Run one and two I was 12th both times and I knew that somebody behind me would improve and bump me out of the top 12, so I had push really hard on the last run which makes it easy to make a mistake. It was on the limit, but I managed to do a lap that put me in the top 12. That’s the biggest thing in F3.“It’s been a tricky start but I’m really happy to get some proper points on the board. For the rest of the season, I think we just need to maximise everything we have across each weekend and the biggest thing will be to make sure that no matter what happens we make it inside the top 12 in Qualifying.“If we can have a similar weekend to this one from now until the end of the season, I think we can be in a good place.”