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Tsunoda shares AlphaTauri's high ambitions: 'We were fighting Williams'

Tsunoda shares AlphaTauri's high ambitions: 'We were fighting Williams'

15-03-2023 10:31 Last update: 10:48
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GPblog.com

Yuki Tsunoda is not happy with AlphaTauri's performance, as the speed of the AT-04 does not match the team's ambitions. The Japanese driver looked ahead to the upcoming race weekend in an AlphaTauri press release.

Nyck de Vries' teammate was disappointed about his team's speed and shared AlphaTauri's very ambitious target. "From the weekend in Bahrain, it’s clear that our performance is quite far away from where we wanted to be in the first race, especially as we are aiming to be at the front of the midfield. We still need to find a lot more performance from our car. Last year, we were fighting Williams for P9 in the Constructors", the very ambitious Tsunoda said.

Tsunoda knows what needs to be done: "It means we have to focus on developing our car and for myself, I have to try and extract as much performance from the car as possible and I’d say I managed to do that in Bahrain on Sunday."

What can AlphaTauri do in Jeddah?

In Bahrain, AlphaTauri failed to perform well. Will Jeddah suit them better? "I know where we are struggling but for this weekend in Saudi, I am more hopeful that we can be better than in Bahrain. I think the high-speed nature of the track in Saudi will suit our package better, so let’s wait and see."

In any case, Tsunoda is looking forward to it and, meanwhile, also has a very ambitious aim. "It’s really unique, Sector 1 especially with the high-speed esses, which are very specific to the Saudi track and not found anywhere else on the calendar. Last year was unfortunate." Indeed, Tsunoda qualified eighth but had to drop out on Sunday due to technical problems. That won't happen to him again this weekend, Tsunoda believes. "Our reliability with this year’s car has been good so far. During testing and the first race, we had no major issues, so I’m confident that this year I will drive every session from Friday to Sunday, and I am looking forward to it.”