Yuki Tsunoda felt he recovered to perform his best in F1 Belgian GP after small slump that he faced in the races before.
After two years of average running from AlphaTauri’s Tsunoda, the Japanese driver finally showed his mettle in F1 2023 with consistent performances so far in the first half, even though he only has three points to show it in terms of results.
Pundits predicted Nyck de Vries to be ahead of him but Tsunoda kept him at bay. In the two races with Daniel Ricciardo, the Japanese driver did manage to score in one. It cam after a mini slump which he was happy that he could shed away soon in Belgian GP.
“I mean, obviously it’s… actually… obviously, it’s not… it’s hard, quite hard, challenging,” started Tsunoda when asked if he was happy to play under the radar when the focus was on de Vries and Ricciardo. “But same time I know that this current situation is completely new for me.
“I’m learning a lot, like especially got challenge you know by experienced driver and not only experienced driver, he’s not, you know, like a normal experience driver, he’s just a top driver and we know that he’s fast. And I already know he is fast, so… But also how he’s behaving in the team is like much… totally opposite as me, so lots of things to learn, a lot from him.
“It’s also a bit of pressure for myself and probably that kind of make me rushy feeling and a couple of mistakes last couple of races, so… but yeah, able to put it all together in last race, it was not easy. But yeah, just happy and feeling ready for a fight with him second half of the season,” summed up Tsunoda.
Here’s Daniel Ricciardo on being hard on himself
Here’s Yuki Tsunoda with a points finish
