Yuki Tsunoda’s standout finish to Formula 1 pre-season testing was a big shift from a stressful first couple of days in which he struggled to drive ‘normally’.
AlphaTauri driver Tsunoda ended the Bahrain test second-quickest, lapping a tenth slower than Red Bull driver Max Verstappen.
Though his lap time clearly came with the help of a more powerful Honda engine mode, and was boosted by an early DRS activation that wouldn’t be allowed on a race weekend, it was a good showcase of the 21-year-old’s abilities.
It was also the perfect way to round off some eye-catching performance runs in which he was hustling the AT02 with great confidence. That hadn’t been the case earlier in the test.
Tsunoda arrived in Bahrain with a good amount of mileage already completed in 2018, 2019 and 2020 machinery as his team sought to maximise the opportunities afforded by F1’s rules permitting the testing of cars that are at least two years old.
He tested a 2018 Toro Rosso last year at Imola and the 2020 AlphaTauri in the post-season Abu Dhabi test, then switched to 2019 Toro Rosso for a return to Imola and another test at Misano. He played a part in shaking down the 2021 AT02 at Imola as well, which meant he had clocked thousands of kilometres across a range of cars by the time pre-season testing started last week.
Yet by the end of the second day, he was lagging behind team-mate Pierre Gasly in terms of laps completed and admitted to feeling stressed out by a few niggling problems, which he said meant he had not really been attacking in the car.
“I was a bit stressed, to be honest” :: Yuki Tsunoda
The reduced mileage is explained by a fuel system problem on the opening day that cut his running short but also meant the 37 laps he did manage were inconsistent. That’s before considering they were taking place in the sub-optimal sandy conditions that blight the first afternoon of the test.
Tsunoda admitted that was “quite a big issue”, but he took it in his stride because he knew there was a chance of some reliability gremlins striking during the test. What was slightly harder to stomach were the setbacks that followed on day two.
AlphaTauri fashioned a special pedal design to accommodate Tsunoda sharing a car with Gasly, as Tsunoda is only 159cm (5ft2in) tall – six inches shorter than his new team-mate. Tsunoda said the pedals broke on day two, which cost him time.
There were also issues with the DRS not working for performance runs on the medium tyre, and an engine issue on the C4 (second-softest) compound believed to be related to excessive battery use early in the lap.
This meant he went into his final day needing to “reset my mind” and clear the frustration of not feeling like he was able to explore the limits of the car.
“I was a bit stressed, to be honest,” Tsunoda admitted. “[It felt] like almost every stint I couldn’t drive normal, for example using DRS and braking into Turn 1, and braking without DRS, is a massive difference.
“Every time I put on a new tyre it wasn’t maximum performance.
“Braking makes everything: car balance, rotation. And I couldn’t rotate the car enough, and was having understeer.”
His test, though far from a disaster after the first two days, switched gears on Sunday. Tsunoda had the afternoon session in which to complete his first and only race simulation of the test, learn some tyre management techniques – having turned to Gasly for help – and complete those evening performance runs on the softer compounds.
That allowed him to finish on a high, even briefly threatening to end the test fastest of anyone. While the final lap times do not mean Tsunoda or any of his fans should be getting carried away, they are part of the progress he made across the test.
Moving past the issues that were disrupting his efforts before Sunday meant Tsunoda was able to tick off vital items on a driver’s testing to-do list, which is always better to get done late than never.
He said he finished those three days having learned “so much”, and it will also be to his benefit that the season opener takes place on the same circuit next week.
Yes, Tsunoda’s F1 debut is unlikely to be characterised by a P2 finish and a Verstappen-challenging lap time, or illegal DRS deployment for that matter. And the testing leaderboard flatters him for a few reasons.
But the value of his last day in the car, and the progress his final flourish represents, should not be overlooked.
