Following on from the launch of the AT04, Scuderia AlphaTauri will be hoping that they can improve on last season’s performance after finishing in a disappointing ninth place in the Constructors’ Championship.
One man who will need to have a big season for the team in 2023 is Yuki Tsunoda, who enters into his third year in Formula 1. The Japanese driver has stated that his main goal for the upcoming season is to perform more consistently for AlphaTauri across every race.
“My main goal is to perform more consistently in every race, independently from the car’s performance, and to score points more reliably,” said the Japanese driver.
“I want to be more in control of myself at all times, work well with the team, understand the car as quickly as possible, right from the first race in Bahrain. I want this year to be my best performance of the three years in terms of getting to Q3 and scoring points.”
Both Tsunoda and the team struggled in 2022, only managing to pick up thirty-five points across twenty-two races with Tsunoda accounting for twelve of those points. However, he believes that he has improved as a driver since joining the sport in 2021, adding that he’s on another level now.
“I’m at a completely different level now, although I have still kept the good aspects of my first year. But now, I am definitely more in control, more involved with the team when it comes to the development of the car and I also act differently, having learned lots of things, not just when it comes to racing but also in my life away from the track.”
“Even that has a positive effect in how I race. I had underestimated what was involved, but now I’ve figured out the things that are really important.”
Furthermore, Tsunoda believes he made a big step forward in his second season with the team by making two key improvements despite AlphaTauri struggling across most of last season.
“Mainly, there were two reasons. The first was my physical development, which I worked on a lot before the season began. That made a big difference to my physical condition in general, meaning that my concentration levels and performance improved in the races.”
“The second reason was that my level of confidence returned after I had lost some of it in my first F1 season and that had been my big limitation. I was able to rebuild that confidence little by little and especially in the last three races of 2021, after which I was able to build on that momentum in all the races last year. Those two factors were the key to my improvement as a driver.”
With the 2023 season just around the corner, Tsunoda will have a new team-mate in Nyck de Vries, who was rewarded with a race seat after a great performance for Williams Racing in Monza last season with a ninth place finish in his first F1 race.
Both drivers spent some time over the winter training in Dubai as Tsunoda is looking forward to developing his relationship with de Vries and is excited to see what they can both do to help push the team forward.
“Nyck was also training in Dubai, so we got the opportunity to spend a little bit of time together. We knew each other before then from past years. We already have a good relationship, and we will build more on that now as teammates this season.”
“I think together we make a strong pairing, with the aim of helping the team progress this year. I also believe I can learn things from Nyck.”
