The future of Irish drivers in single seaters is looking up in recent years, having gone through a quiet period in the last 20 years or so.
The last driver to race with an Irish racing license in F1 came in 2003, courtesy of Ralph Firman. In 2005 Eddie Jordan sold his Jordan Grand Prix team, and Irish involvement in the series has been minimal ever since.
However, a new crop of Irish single seater drivers are coming through at the moment, spearheaded by Alex Dunne in F3, and James Roe and Jonathan Browne in Indy NXT.
Dunne is perhaps the most high profile of those names to date, even more so after signing as part of McLaren’s Driver Development Programme in May 2024, in a move which is sure to only benefit his career.
Léigh an scéal seo trí Ghaeilge ar Liathróidí.ie brúigh anseo.
Charlie Eastwood on the challenges of moving up in single seaters
Having started out in single seaters himself, World Endurance Championship driver and 2020 24hr of Le Mans winner Charlie Eastwood knows all too well the difficulties drivers face when it comes to moving up in single seater categories - citing F1 race winner and Mercedes driver George Russell as an example as to how hard it is to get deals done.
The talent is only really quite a small bit of it, you know, you need to get the [financial] backing to continue throughout it all.
It’s super tough, I obviously bailed out really early because I realised it does take a lot of budget to get there, a lot of sponsors and they’re obviously not easy to come by.
The likes of a George Russell was two months out from going to DTM back when he was doing F3, and had a contract to do DTM, and last minute emailed Toto Wolff and he’s now an F1 superstar.
The exposure that happens for drivers competing in Formula 2 and Formula 3 is not to be underestimated. Being on the same schedule as Formula 1 allows teams to have a closer look at the next crop of up-and-coming single seater drivers.
Alex Dunne made his F3 debut earlier this year in Bahrain with MP Motorsport, on the back of two very successful years in F4 and GB3. However, becoming a part of the McLaren F1 team will help him in making that next step up, according to Eastwood.
MP is incredibly proud to announce Alex Dunne to join the Mclaren Driver Development Programme 🧡
It’s great to see yet another F1 Driver’s Programme to connect to our drivers and have our car drive in an F1 livery. #F3 #ImolaGP pic.twitter.com/5XB9jQdIrw— MP Motorsport (@OfficialMPteam) May 16, 2024
For sure the talent’s there, obviously Alex Dunne getting signed with McLaren in the last month is a massive leap for him, especially on that road to F1.
I hope they’re [young Irish drivers] able to just keep pushing on as far as possible, and it is just timing with all of this.
A lot of strong results are coming through at the minute, fingers crossed that stays on.
While Eastwood never got his shot at higher level single seater cars, he has made endurance racing his home, in series that are consistently competitive and exciting.
Eastwood and the #81 TF Sport Corvette finished 15th in the LMGT3 category in Le Mans over the weekend.
