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Tsunoda retrospective qualifying Azerbaijan

Tsunoda on Baku circuit: 'Very difficult to warm up tyres here'

28 April 2023 at 19:27
Last update 29 April 2023 at 07:26
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  • GPblog.com

Yuki Tsunoda is very pleased with the AlphaTauri's performance in qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The Japanese driver managed to reach Q3 for the first time this season, which he said was due to the new upgrades installed by the team.

Tsunoda experienced a good Friday in Baku. Although the AlphaTauri is generally seen as one of the slowest cars this season, Tsunoda still managed to reach Q3 and even ended up finishing in eighth place.

"The AlphaTauri itself, based on the last three years, is quite suited to the Azerbaijan track compared to other tracks," Tsunoda told GPblog and others after qualifying. "We can expect better performance than the last three races but also we brought updates to focus more towards straight line speed. Getting the car into Q3 was difficult, but overall I think it was a better performance compared to the past three races."

"You notice the difference straight away," Tsunoda continued. "In FP1 in the first main straight I feel really fast. This car is much faster than the other three rounds so the straight line speed was really fast. So definitely we managed that."

Baku proves to be a very difficult circuit for tyre temperatures

Nevertheless, it was not an easy qualifying session for AlphaTauri. Tsunodas team-mate Nyck de Vries landed in the wall, resulting in the session being flagged off. Not much later, the red flag was waved again when Pierre Gasly also crashed. Several other drivers also struggled with the tight corners on the Baku circuit.

"It was a really tricky track, especially the tyre was also tricky, " Tsunoda acknowledged. "As you could see, most drivers struggled with braking, especially in the first sector. The front tyre is not hot enough. We try our best to warm up the tyre as much as possible, but we had a very difficult time with it."