The Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda team has not maximized the points scored in the first two races of the season. The AlphaTauri team has a fast car and has the potential to battle the Scuderia Ferrari and the McLaren F1 teams for third position. The Italian team is in fifth position in the constructors’ championship, but could have had a larger haul of points.
Yuki Tsunoda in his debut season has shown flashes of raw speed. Tsunoda has made his share of rookie mistakes and is guilty of throwing away points. The Japanese driver was driving for the first time at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve track. The conditions were slippery with the strong winds make it harder for the drivers.
Tsunoda was only in thirteenth and fourteenth positions in the two practice sessions as he came to terms with the difficult conditions on a new track. Tsunoda felt he was improving steadily and said: “Today was the first time that I’ve driven the track here in Portugal and I really enjoyed it – especially the up-and-down areas of the circuit – and I’ve learnt quite a bit in the two sessions today.
“There’s a lot of new elements to understand, there’s really low grip levels compared to Bahrain and Imola, so at first I struggled to adapt to that but I think I managed to learn fairly quickly and my progression through the day has been good. I’m continuing to build the pace in the car and tonight I’ll look through the data with my engineers, analysing the set-up of the car, and then tomorrow I hope to put it altogether for Qualifying.”
Pierre Gasly: “Compared to the last few races, we’re really struggling”
Pierre Gasly has taken up where he left off last season. Gasly has qualified consistently in the top 10 positions and in the new season he has qualified in fifth position in the first two races. The Frenchman has only a seventh position and six points to show for it.
An unfortunate clash in the opening laps led to a DNF in the first race. If Gasly and his team-mate Tsunoda stay mistake-free and maximize the potential in the car, the team can well and truly battle for third position in the constructors’ championship.
Gasly managed to improve to sixth position in the second free practice session and said: “It’s been quite a difficult day, the car doesn’t feel that good so tonight we need to analyse everything and see what we need to do to improve, as we’re not currently utilising our full potential. Compared to the last few races, we’re really struggling on braking in the low-speed areas, so we need to look at what we’ve changed. Obviously, the conditions and layout are very different here – it’s quite slippery – so we might need to make some different adjustments to usual.
“The midfield is so tight at the moment that we have to work on this a lot tonight to find the extra time for tomorrow – two or three tenths at the moment can lose you six or seven places, come Qualifying, so it really is crucial. I think I’ve been in Q3 for the last five or six races so I really want to continue that train and I’m confident we can make some changes tonight so that can happen again tomorrow.”
