Why the F2 championship leader deleted social media after Monaco pile-up

The stewards judged that Rodin Motorsport driver Dunne was at fault for diving up the inside of ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins at Turn 1 on the opening lap in Monaco, making contact and creating a pile-up that ended the race of multiple cars behind.

He was handed a 10-place grid penalty for the following race in Spain, which was worsened when he picked up a three-place grid penalty for both races at the Barcelona circuit for driving into the back of Martins at the pit entry in practice.

Dunne charged from 19th on the grid to second in the Barcelona sprint race, taking full advantage of a late-race safety car to bolt on the soft tyres and charge past those drivers on older hard tyres.

After earning that podium one week on from his Monaco disaster, Dunne spoke of the abuse he received following the incident.

“I got a lot of stuff after Monaco, normally I’m not someone who reads things and gets annoyed by them,” the 19-year-old said in the post-race press conference.

“But, I think an hour after the race, I deleted social media off my phone because I’ve never received such bad messages in my life.

“A lot of the stuff I got was really, really bad and quite upsetting to be honest. But you know, I think...”

Dunne was unable to continue his answer, overcome with the emotion of recalling the abuse, with the press conference moving onto different topics. 

McLaren’s support

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella was asked in Barcelona about the abuse Dunne has received and how the team is supporting him.

“Alex is doing very well, he’s a very fast driver, very talented, and the situation he had in Monaco was one of those situations where you can learn a lot,” Stella said.

“If we think, multiple world champions, they went through situations that were very important to fine-tune the way they go racing.

“We had good conversations with Alex to reaffirm our complete support to his talent, to the championship he’s fighting for. We always see a very mature person.

“The way he raced today [in the 2025 Spanish F2 sprint race], the way he managed to overtake cars in a very clean way in the first lap, stay calm and see how the situation would have evolved, and capitalise when the opportunity came, was an immediate response to the situation he had in Monaco, and the pressure that came from these social media comments, for me that’s something that makes me very proud of him.

“I think it was genuine. I think we need to realise that we live in a difficult world in which people can attack people really with no foundation, sometimes no competence, so we’re completely behind Alex, not only on track but also off-track from this point of view.

“I just felt a little bit for him, but I also felt very proud of him in showing his reaction, being genuine, natural - but for me [I want to make] a call to our sense of responsibility overall. Even you guys that have the pen, we need to make sure in anything we do, that we try to avoid situations that can be too controversial, not referring to the situation with Alex, not referring to what was written in the media, I know what was written in the comments.

“But just a sense of responsibility is the main call I would like to make.”

A podium in the Spanish F2 sprint race and fifth place in the following feature race gave Dunne the championship lead heading to the 13th and 14th races of the season in Austria, at the Red Bull Ring, on June 27-29.