Dunne pleased with 'smooth' Monza F1 outing

Dunne will start in fifth for the reverse grid sprint race on Saturday

Ireland's Alex Dunne says he is "pretty happy" with his second outing on a Formula 1 weekend for McLaren at the Italian Grand Prix.

Dunne was replacing championship leader Oscar Piastri for first practice at Monza and ended the session in 16th place

While not as spectacular as his F1 debut in Austria in June, when he finished fourth in practice and was just 0.069 seconds off Piastri, it was a solid showing from the 19-year-old Irishman.

He ended the hour-long practice session half a second slower than Lando Norris, who was sixth overall as Lewis Hamilton posted the fastest time at Ferrari's home race.

"I really enjoyed it once again and it's a pleasure to be working with all the guys," Dunne told McLaren.

"Being alongside Lando for FP1 was really cool."

Before heading to Italy, Dunne admitted to BBC Sport that he had set the bar high with his performance but it "wasn't the time to try and be a hero" in Italy.

Dunne felt it was a "smooth" session as he got to grips with the championship-leading MCL39 on one of the most historic circuits on the Formula 1 calendar.

"I don't think it was quite as strong as Austria but it's been a long time since I've been in the car, and you need a lot of confidence just to jump in," said the Formula 2 title contender.

"I'm still generally happy with how the session went. It was quite smooth.

"I think there's still a couple of areas to work on but that's to be expected.

"Overall I'm quite happy."

After his Formula 2 session, Dunne returned to Formula 2 and he posted the sixth-fastest time in qualifying.

Dunne will start in fifth for the reverse grid sprint race at 13:15 BST on Saturday, and the feature race is at 08:45 BST on Sunday.