AlphaTauri debutant Yuki Tsunoda delighted with his first appearance in Formula 1 in which he scored two points and made a number of overtaking, especially the overtaking of Fernando Alonso in Alpine since he was the driver he admired as a boy.
After a meteoric climb through the junior single-seater categories, Tsunoda made his debut in the first race of the season in Bahrain, and although he did not have good qualifications, he drove a great race in which he managed to break through to ninth place, overtaking Stroll in Aston Martin in the last lap.
The Japanese started from 13th place, and despite a careful start after which he fell to 16th place, he did not let himself be discouraged and overtook Russell in Williams, Vettel in Aston Martin, Ocon in Alpine and once again Vettel who was not yet in the pits.
In the lap 27, Tsunoda overtook Alonso, and after that he overtook Vettel for the third time, while in the 38th lap he overtook another world champion and the most experienced driver in Formula 1 Raikkonen.
He concluded a great race by overtaking Stroll in the final lap of the race and took ninth place by two points in his first F1 appearance.
“I’m happy to have managed to score points in my first F1 race, I think this race has shown what great performance our car has,” Tsunoda said.
“I have to say I’m a little disappointed because I lost a few positions in the first round because I was too careful so I had to work hard to make up for it.”
“I learned a lot in Bahrain, which is really positive, and I will take that knowledge to Imola.”
“I had a few overtaking and to overtake Alonso was an emotional experience, he’s an F1 superstar I grew up watching watching races and it was pretty exciting.”
“I’m really proud of my performance and I’m looking forward to seeing what we’ll be like in the next race,” concluded Tsunoda.
The next race will take place in three weeks on the track in Imola, where Tsunoda did several private tests for AlphaTauri, but also the first test of the new AT02 before the start of the season.
