Tsunoda: “I should be in front of him"

Yuki Tsunoda had a difficult debut season in Formula 1 last year. Expectations for the Japanese driver were high, but ultimately the results were disappointing. Tsunoda feels he is doing better in all areas this year and says he feels he can match Pierre Gasly in speed.

While Tsunoda finished fourteenth and scored 32 points in 2021, Gasly found himself ninth with more than three times as many points as his team-mate. Gasly is again ahead of Tsunoda after thirteen Grands Prix, but this time the difference is a lot smaller with five points (16 to 11).

Tsunoda vs Gasly

"From my perspective, yes. I would say I’m much closer to him than last year," he comments to GP Racing magazine. "I wouldn’t say that I’m definitely better than him now. But I sense I’m not worse as well. Because if you consider everything that’s happened so far this season in all the races – like what you mentioned about Baku, where I lost good points..."

At the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Tsunoda raced around sixth place, but had to go in extra once due to a broken DRS. He ended up outside the top-ten. However, the 22-year-old driver also admitted in the interview himself that Gasly had already lost points in Bahrain due to engine problems. "But at the same time I had an engine failure in Saudi Arabia. So if we count all that I think in the points I should be in front of him, yeah."

Contract situation

Tsunoda does not yet have a contract for next year at AlphaTauri, but according to Helmut Marko the current number sixteen in the World Cup is the biggest contender to take his place alongside Gasly again in 2023.