Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
GB3 runner-up Alex Dunne has secured an FIA Formula 3 Championship seat for 2024 with MP Motorsport.
The 18-year-old Irishman will be embarking on his fourth year in single-seater racing, and will be team-mate to fellow F3 rookies and new Red Bull juniors Kacper Sztuka and Tim Tramnitz.
Dunne started off in Formula 4 in 2021, doing three rounds of the Spanish championship with Pinnacle Motorsport and taking a pole and a podium then joining US Racing in ADAC’s championship and claiming two poles and two podiums.
He began a successful alliance with Hitech GP in 2022, winning two races in F4 United Arab Emirates then romping to the British F4 title with a tally of 11 wins and 11 poles. Dunne also reunited with US Racing in Italian F4, where he was championship runner-up after taking three victories.
Last year he stepped up to GB3 with Hitech, and although he had an impressive season featuring five wins he fell short of claiming the title. In November the team gave him his first taste of F3 at the Macau Grand Prix, where he qualified sixth, finished second in the qualification race but crashed out of the FIA F3 World Cup-awarding main race.
“I’m thrilled to start my first full season of FIA F3 with MP Motorsport,” said Dunne.
“They are proven winners in every category they compete in, and I’m sure that they will use their experience to help me build on my initial experiences with the F3 car in the post-season FIA F3 test at Imola and then at Macau.
“I will be up against the best drivers at this level of single-seater racing, but that’s what I’m here for. I relish the challenge ahead and can’t wait to get started.”
MP’s team principal Sander Dorsman added: “We are truly excited to welcome Alex to our FIA F3 team. He has had an outstanding year in GB3 and then, fresh into an FIA F3 car, proved his innate pace at Imola and Macau. His Macau performance in particular was hard to overlook, so we were happy to pounce and snap him up for our final FIA F3 seat.”