“Mercedes must be p*ssed off” – Yuki Tsunoda has held off Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas in recent races in his AlphaTauri, as he looks to overcome poor rookie season so far.
Yuki Tsunoda is playing the team game with Red Bull, fighting bravely with Mercedes on the track. He did so against Lewis Hamilton in Turkey, before heading up Valtteri Bottas for a few laps in the USGP.
Mercedes must be p*ssed off.
“I don’t want to let through any drivers easily. I just did the right thing, the normal thing. I was using the tyres, but in the end, I enjoyed the battles.”
AlphaTauri pleased with Tsunoda’s progress
AlphaTauri technical director Jody Egginton is pleased with Tsunoda’s outing in Austin, Texas. The Japanese was on the points – a rarity this season – on a day Pierre Gasly suffered a DNF.
The Italian team ensured Yuki Tsunoda qualifies for Q3, putting him on softs as a result. It was a risk they took, but it paid off, as they battle Alpine for the Top 5 in the championship.
“With Yuki, we’ve been making some good progress lately with the car. He’s getting his confidence back a bit and it’s important to try and get him as far up the grid as we can and give him the confidence.
“If we’d have gone to the medium tyre he might have qualified outside of the top 10. He would have had a free tyre choice, that’s fair enough, but we thought ‘let’s try and get him in the top 10’.
“We knew Pierre would be up there as well, so the view was we’d have Pierre on the mediums, let’s give it a go with Yuki and get him up there. Had he qualified down in 15th or 16th, it makes it far more difficult.
“It was a risk. It would have been a challenge to get him through on the mediums in Q2. So it was either settle for 11th or 12th or put on the option (softs) and get him into the top 10.”
