Tsunoda showcases his respect to Ricciardo amid replacement rumours

What does Tsunoda think about Ricciardo?

Ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix, Tsunoda was asked about his thoughts on the seat alongside him. The Japanese driver brushed it off because of uncertainty. "No, of course not. I can't say anything. I don't know. To be honest, it's just speculation. I don't know anything about it. It's up to them. It's not up to me at all. I just have to focus to what I can do," Tsunoda said.

But Tsunoda did report that he is happy working alongside his teammate and spoke about how he has looked up to him to improve his own performance. "I definitely respect him a lot. The things he has are the things I don't have, so especially that emotional control and how he's able to be consistent to the team. I would say I'm bit more, probably, emotional, for example," Tsunoda said about Tsunoda after stressing that was an area he wanted to improve upon earlier in the season.

"If I have a bad session or whatever, for example, the quality of the feedback might be a little bit worse than usual. But he's very consistent, and I think he understood more about the car. Well, he understood more about the situation and what things would give positivity to the team. I learned a lot of things from him, and I'm still learning about that. Those things I'm definitely respecting," Tsunoda added.

Ricciardo returned to Red Bull Racing's sister team midway through the 2023 season as Nyck de Vries' replacement and became Tsunoda's teammate. Ricciardo has struggled in the teammate duel though. He current trails Tsunoda in the World Championship. Tsunoda has nearly scored twice as many points.

This article has been created in collaboration with Jeroen Immink

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