Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri, Hungaroring, 2021

Tsunoda gives himself ‘five or six out of ten’ for first half of season

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In the round-up: Yuki Tsunoda says he has plenty of room for improvement after his first 11 Formula 1 races.

In brief

Tsunoda targets better consistency

After five points-scoring finishes but several qualifying crashes, AlphaTauri rookie Tsunoda says he needs to be more consistent in the second half of his debut season.

Asked to rate his performance so far out of 10, Tsunoda gave himself “five or six” ahead of the summer break.

“The last four races I showed a little bit more consistency compared to the first seven or six races. But I still need more consistency the whole race week – FP1, FP2, FP3 and qualifying – to help.”

Saudi Arabia reveals race slogan

The promoters of the inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix have announced a slogan for their race: “Overtake the future”. It is intended to stylise the event, which is due to take place on December 5th at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, as modern, exciting, and record-breaking.

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Comment of the day

What’s the best place to watch at Spa-Francorchamps, scene of this weekend’s grand prix?

I was just before Pouhon corner at that small straight, pretty good view and you can see which cars can go flat and which can’t. And you are pretty close to the track. Wasn’t too crowded in 2019.

I think Les Combes is a good spot too.
Adis

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On this day in motorsport

  • 30 years ago today Emanuele Naspetti won the Formula 3000 round at Spa-Francorchamps supporting the Belgian Grand Prix

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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21 comments on “Tsunoda gives himself ‘five or six out of ten’ for first half of season”

  1. My take is that Tsunoda has been making way too many excuses and not taking enough on himself. It’s actually gotten old listening to his excuses.

    1. It sounds to me like Yuki is saying what the Team Principal is telling him, so we don’t know his true beliefs. If the claim he looses his temper in the cockpit of the car is true, then he doesn’t deserve more than 9/10. How can a car perform at its best when you aren’t in control of your body? Yuki needs to control his temper, then he can control his mouth and his body, and then he will control the car better.

  2. Wow! First comment for me on this site and I get a CotD, thank you Keith. Means a lot! Best website btw 😁

    1. You’re welcome. Also, welcome!

    2. It’s a great topic – I walked all the way around on the Saturday in 2000. the bank on the outside on the exit of les combes was pretty good because you could see down the straight to Pouhon as well as the track immediately in front and up to Rivage. the corner before Pouhon was really interesting for different lines/performance. the trees above the old bus stop chicane were pretty good – loads of lock ups and action in the F3000 race (or maybe it was the Porsche super cup?). I watched the race from Kemmel, which was surprisingly good (i.e. despite the high speed), as it had a screen and in the rain there was a lot of passing, and we got to see Hakkinen’s amazing overtake towards the end. I don’t know what it’s like now, but the fact you could walk around it all, and the only inaccessible bits were the grandstands by the pits and la source, made it very appealing.

    3. Stop typing now while you’re still at an incredible 50% score!

      ;-)

  3. With Ferrari and McLaren way ahead fighting for 3rd & 4th; AlphaTauri are in a very tight fight on who will win the mid group title with 9 pts behind 5th place overall. A lot of the teams have really closed the speed gaps among each other and now scoring well in WCC ranking depends on both drivers equally pulling their weight to make the difference. Obviously AT has been going well like RB with a strong PU.

    Gasly has been the heavy lifter on the AT team scoring a nice amount of points for the team and now up to Tsunoda to improve his 5/10 rating coming out of the summer break to help solidify and improve AT rankings. Not sure if he will but seems like he’s been given the chance to identify what is needs improvement and then work on it. I guess we’ll find out if he was able to?

  4. F1 in Indonesia please!!!

  5. The promoters of the inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix have announced a slogan for their race: “Overtake the future”.

    Isn’t it called getting ahead of themselves?

    For Saudi, catching up would already be something remarkable.

    1. I wonder why “heading for the future” and “on a knife’s edge” didn’t make the cut.

    2. :-) great point there @jeanrien!

  6. How come there was zero coverage of 24h of Le Mans? We get news about about video games and not a word for the worlds most famous race with several past F1 drivers competing in it?

      1. @Keith I appreciate the answer. I saw it in round-up and “zero” was an exaggeration of my disappointment. I have been a reader of your site almost from the begining and it is my primary source for motorsport coverage, hence my disappointment. I follow WEC closely while one the other hand I have a mild interest in F2/F3/indy and none for Formula E.

  7. I noticed something slightly weird in the IDN Times post, which makes me think the article might be from 2019 rather than recently published:
    ”Groundbreaking will begin in October 2019, with the development of the foundation and underground utilities system as well as roads by IDTC, before Vinci comes on board to complete the racing circuit and associated facilities.”
    ”Once completed towards the end of 2020, it is envisage that the Mandalika circuit will host a MotoGP test prior to being added formerly to the racing calendar the following year.”
    Anyway, probably a more distant future thing if ever.

    Another Zandvoort race was never a realistic option in the first place, so pointless for some people to even think about this. Furthermore, risky with low and fluctuating temps deep into the Northern Hemisphere autumn.

  8. I like Tsunoda and think he’s got a lot of potential but I think 5/10 is generous.

  9. Other than Mazapin I can’t remember anyone having a worst first season

  10. Re Tsunoda: I would probably give it a 4.
    Re Saudi Arabia: Well, Sonny Crockett has a much better slogan!
    Re Indonesia: Another public road circuit…
    Re Zandvoort: No double race for the rest of this year would be a possibility.

    1. Indeed, he’s a rookie, so giving himself 5 is probably fair, but 6 is just exagerated, he’s dreaming if he thinks what he did is sufficient.

  11. Michael (@freelittlebirds)
    24th August 2021, 14:16

    Does he have a performance coach?

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