De Vries happy with his progress, 'but there is room for improvement'

The Dutchman looks back on his last races with satisfaction. "I think the last two weekends were very positive," De Vries stated. "Monaco was a solid, clean weekend and over the whole Barcelona event, we showed a strong performance." Nevertheless, he's keeping both feet on the ground:"There is still room for improvement, but I can definitely see we have good potential, so I’m continuing to focus on progressing and working the way I have recently been doing."

Over the past few weekends, Alpha Tauri brought updates to the tracks. According to the F1 rookie, the Italian racing stable has taken the right path. "The team has done a great job over the last few races, and I can see a clear upward trend as we are getting closer to the top ten. They have put in a lot of time, work and effort into better development of the car and bringing that to the track. It has definitely paid off in terms of competitiveness."

Uncharted territory

In Barcelona and Monaco, the AlphaTauri driver had the advantage of already knowing the track reasonably well. After all, he already made metres at both tracks in Formula 2. In Canada, things are different. "This weekend will be the first time I race here," he tells honestly. "When you just look at the map, it seems like a simple layout but it’s quite tricky." Where he will finish, De Vries does not dare say:"I worked on it in the simulator last week, but it’s difficult to predict how we will get on because, as the midfield is so tight."

'From mistakes I can learn'

Yuki Tsunoda has had two disappointing races. The Japanese driver was certainly fast in his Alpha Tauri, but braking problems (Monaco) and a time penalty (Spain) kept him from points, which were definitely in the cards. "Even though we know we are struggling a bit this season, we have achieved good results in the races, and that is down to how hard everyone is working."

Tsunoda is performing steker than ever before this season and he sees that for himself. "I feel I am personally improving race by race and able to give 100% in terms of concentration and effort, which was my target for this year. I know I can deliver and because I am pushing, I’m on the limit every lap. Occasionally that leads to a mistake, but I can learn from that."