How AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda experienced his first year in Formula 1, what was the biggest lesson for him and what started the turnaround
He overtook Fernando Alonso in the very first Formula 1 race and scored World Championship points. But then things got tough for AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda: accidents became more frequent, teammate Pierre Gasly was often much stronger and meaningful results did not always materialise.
And so Tsunoda draws a ruthless conclusion and finds clear words for his performance, in the style of his pithy statements on the radio. Core sentence: “Until I moved to Italy, I was a lazy bastard”.
It was precisely this move that Red Bull sporting director Helmut Marko had ordered after Tsunoda’s performance in the first phase of the season had not lived up to expectations. AlphaTauri team boss Franz Tost should thus have better access to his Formula 1 driver and be able to “orientate” Tsunoda better to his actual tasks.
Formula 1 not taken seriously
Because Tsunoda himself admits: He didn’t take Formula 1 seriously enough in the beginning. He explains: “After practice, I went straight back to my flat, fired up the Playstation and gambled for the rest of the day. Then, in the race week, the hectic started. I didn’t start my preparations until then, and I think it was too late then.”
It seemed the young Japanese driver had been dazzled by his Formula One debut in Bahrain. In the opening race, he had finished ninth in the points and thus achieved a season goal in the very first Grand Prix.
In fact, Tsunoda admits to underestimating the Formula One task. “I would say my confidence was too high. I was under the impression it would be too easy because I hadn’t had a major incident or anything like that [in Bahrain]. I had had it under control. So I assumed it would be easy. “
The qualifying crash at Imola? “Bad luck!”
He didn’t let his qualifying crash at Imola upset him either, he said. “I thought [the crash] was bad luck,” he says. “My confidence was still there.”
But then other incidents followed, and these gradually left their mark on Tsunoda, as he says: “It knocked my confidence. And I realised: it was quite difficult after all, much more difficult than I had believed. “
How Tsunoda realised something was going wrong
Tsunoda had got stuck in Formula One. “All my preparation was ruined,” he explains. That’s because he had got involved with Formula 1 as he had previously with the junior series Formula 2. “But that races under a completely different format,” says Tsunoda.
In fact, Tsunoda admits to underestimating the Formula 1 task. “I would say my confidence was too high. I was under the impression it would be too easy because I hadn’t had a major incident or anything like that [in Bahrain]. I had had it under control. So I assumed it would be easy. “
“There’s only one free practice and then it’s straight into qualifying. That’s why in Formula 2 I tried to be there from the first lap. But in Formula 1 it’s difficult to do that. The risk of hitting the wall and losing a lot of track time is big. Then you have to rebuild your confidence before the second free practice.”
In his case, his adherence to the Formula 2 approach had led to him having “no confidence at all” in Formula 1, because failure followed failure.
For the high-flyer from Japan, who had switched directly to the next series every year from 2018, this came as a complete surprise: “I had never experienced that before. It was tough. And then I had to fight.”
The decisive moment in the 2021 season
The move set by Marko and the timetable set by Tost helped Tsunoda arrive in Formula 1. But it wasn’t until the final third of the season that things “clicked” for the AlphaTauri driver: the Turkish Grand Prix was the key moment in what has been a real rollercoaster year, Tsunoda says looking back.
“Up until then, I had just been trying not to make a big mistake and keep the car on the track. That’s why I was pretty slow, because I was focused on not crashing,” he explains.
In Turkey, however, he realised how wrong that attitude was. “I realised how slow I was. So I had to push harder,” Tsunoda says. “Because in Formula 1 it’s all about results and pace. So I gave myself a different mindset. And then came [seven] races in a row where I didn’t have an accident. That’s why I’m here today. “
Chassis change contributes to feel-good factor
Another positive contributor to the turnaround was a chassis change at the same Grand Prix, also in Istanbul, he said. “Before that, I had not been able to intercept the car. With the new chassis, however, I had the impression that I could control the car much better,” Tsunoda said.
Nonetheless, on paper the first half of the season looks better, with five of the seven top-10 results in the 2021 season. However, Tsunoda’s best individual result came in fourth place at the final race in Abu Dhabi.
But a look at the qualifying statistics reveals something: From the Turkish Grand Prix onwards, Tsunoda was not in the top 10 on the grid only once in seven appearances. Before that, he had only finished among the fastest ten in qualifying three times. And at the very end, he inflicted Gasly’s only defeat in the AlphaTauri drivers’ qualifying duel.
Tsunoda: Perform better in 2022, beat Gasly!
Tsunoda’s 2021 season thus ended on a similarly conciliatory note as it had begun. But a bitter aftertaste remains for the Japanese driver. He says: “I had never had a season with such highs and lows before. So it was definitely an important year for me.”
“What makes me happy, though, is that even in bad situations I have learned something new. And I am happy with my performances and my progress. It was a really big learning year in which I gained a lot of experience. Not much more was possible. And now that I’ve experienced the good and the bad, I can look forward.”
Red Bull has confirmed Tsunoda for another year with AlphaTauri in Formula 1, and the second season will be “really important” for the rest of his career, Tsunoda says.
His sporting goals for 2022: “It’s about having a consistent pace and beating your teammate. And I now know the details in which I need to improve so that I am consistently ahead of my teammate. The ingredients are there, thanks to the very good preparation year. I now know how to develop the car to get faster. “
