Tsunoda didn’t realise he was leading the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Yuki Tsunoda spent five laps leading the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but wasn’t aware he was heading the field at the time.

The AlphaTauri driver rose to the head of the field as he was the last of the drivers who started on the medium tyre compound to pit. He hit the front of the field for the first time in his Formula 1 career on lap 18 and stayed there until he pitted on lap 23.

“To be honest, I didn’t know I was leading the pack, so I was quite surprised about it,” Tsunoda admitted afterwards.

Leading a race would have been beyond AlphaTauri’s wildest dreams in Bahrain, he said. “Looking back, the [start] of the season, we never thought about it, where we’re leading the pack.

“So it’s a massive, massive improvement and without the team efforts we couldn’t achieve this much. The amount they pushed this year, almost every race we had upgrades and it was crazy and they deserved it.”

Today’s race was the last for AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost, who has run Red Bull’s junior F1 team since it was set up in 2006. Although Tsunoda went on to finish eight, the team fell short of overhauling Williams for seventh place in the championship.

“I [wasn’t] able to give the biggest gift to Franz, but I gave it all,” said Tsunoda. “So my performance was in appreciation to him.”

He needed to finish two places higher than he did in order to move them up in the championship. He doubted that would have been possible even with a different strategy.

He said his long opening stint was intentional: “It was the plan, but we knew that it was going to be difficult.

“We were listening to what the tyres say and they held on quite well in the first stint. That helped, I think that was a key moment. I think in the end, what we [did] on the strategy itself was okay.

“Even [if] I did the same exact same strategy as the top teams, I don’t know if we’re able to finish P6 anyway. So I think we don’t have regrets.”

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