Yuki Tsunoda says confidence was the biggest factor during the course of 2021 F1 season and the last few races helped in its building for 2022.
Having started out well in Bahrain of 2021, riding high from his F2 campaign, AlphaTauri’s Tsunoda had a difficult middle patch with incidents curtailing his run. The confidence took a hit and results didn’t come as teammate Pierre Gasly fought a lone battle.
It certainly helped Alpine to beat AlphaTauri considering that both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon contributed towards the championship. But by the end of the season, Tsunoda started to get into a rhythm with consistent Q3 finishes.
He even registered his best result of fourth in the 2021 finale where he cleared Valtteri Bottas on that last lap to end the year on a relative high. During the course, he had to take several measures to help himself, where one was shifting to Italy from UK.
Red Bull even used Alexander Albon as his coach in the latter part of 2021 to help him and it did help Tsunoda. The Japanese driver reckons the confidence started to seep in gradually and came at a right time to start afresh in 2022.
“For me it is more for confidence,” said Tsunoda to written media. “I feel like the whole year the topic was mainly about confidence I was having and I feel even better than in Bahrain and the first time I have had better confidence than in Bahrain [came towards the end of the season], which is good and maybe it was a bit too late but it was a good way to finish like this for 2022.
“I’m felt quite confident with the car towards the end. Not enough, definitely. But the last four or fives races I started to build up the confidence, those things, quite quickly. Not that I’m feeling like I’m controlling the car a 100 percent but like 80 or 90. Also, the last few races I had a good improvement and the races, especially the starts,” summed up Tsunoda.
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