Yuki Tsunoda is feeling more and more comfortable as year goes by, even though he knows he has to learn more especially his radio communication.
His former boss Franz Tost has stated that a rookie in F1 needs at least three seasons in the current times to flourish and showcase his/her full potential. In some ways, his words came true in the case of Tsunoda, who looked pretty different in most cases.
From the get go, he was on point and consistently out-drove Nyck de Vries. Even with Liam Lawson and Daniel Ricciardo in the fray, it didn’t bother him as much. And Tsunoda felt good about himself too, with confidence showing on track at most races.
“Definitely, I’m feeling more comfortable each year,” said Tsunoda. “More towards in 2023, it was getting more and more. I think my first year, there were multiple reasons, but I wasn’t able to really show performance in the first half of the season especially. I think from 2022, things started to get better.
“My confidence is getting better and better and now I’m just really focussing more on being a complete driver. Not just being fast but also giving feedback to development or how mature you can be in a difficult situation. So those are my targets. I think every race, every year I want to find my weakness and be working on it.
“That’s good,” summed up Tsunoda, who also admitted that he will need to improve on his radio communication as he is still venting his frustration whenever in a problem. “I would say the behaviour on the radio and those things, but it got much better compared to the last few years,” he continued.
“But there were still some races where I kind of lost my mind, I could not get my things together and sometimes I was still shouting on the radio. Those things, I want to definitely improve. Some of the calmness and situation control like what happened in Mexico last year, I could have finished P8 easily.
“As a driver I wanted to more, obviously. I had quite good pace and I think if I was able to overtake smoothly, probably there was potential to finish in P5. That was a pretty big mistake for me so I have to definitely reduce that kind of big mistake that I should not have never done in the future as well,” summed up Tsunoda.
Here’s F1 2023 teams’ tier order: https://formularapida.net/f1-2023-teams-categorised-in-tier-system-for-their-performances/
Here’s F1 2023 drivers’ tier order: https://formularapida.net/f1-2023-drivers-categorised-in-tier-system-for-their-performances/
Here’s Daniel Ricciardo on people in paddock encouraging him
Here’s Yuki Tsunoda on consistent 2023
Here’s Daniel Ricciardo on getting the love back
Here’s Daniel Ricciardo on not wanting to dictate happiness by non-wins
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