Tsunoda “learned a lot of lessons” from error-strewn Imola F1 weekend

Yuki Tsunoda says he has “learned a lot of lessons” from his disappointing Emilia Romagna Grand Prix F1 weekend.

After an impressive debut in Bahrain, much was expected from Tsunoda given he had completed several tests for AlphaTauri at Imola ahead of the new season.

The Japanese rookie crashed in qualifying and then spun out while running inside of the points after the red flag period.

Reflecting on his race at Imola, Tsunoda said: “I learned a lot of lessons in Imola. It was quite the opposite to Bahrain which had gone well. I had very high expectations for Imola and so had the team.

“Everything had gone smoothly in free practice but then I made a huge mistake in qualifying, which meant I had a very tough race. I had not had a bad crash for two years, so this was a lesson which I can learn from going into the next races.

“The race was also the first time I had driven a Formula 1 car in the wet and using the intermediate tyres was really tricky, so I had to build up my speed gradually. But we have a car that has been competitive at the first two tracks, capable of running in the top six.”

Teammate Pierre Gasly scored his first points of the season last time out at Imola, recovering from an incorrect strategy call to start on full wets to finish seventh.

Looking ahead to this weekend’s Portuguese Grand Prix, Gasly is hopeful of replicating his fifth-place finish from last year's race.

“Last year I had a good race in Portimao, finishing fifth,” Gasly added. “It’s a really unique circuit with all the gradient changes, going up and down like a rollercoaster. It’s fun driving there and very different to what we’re used to - as a low grip track, the car slides a lot and it’s not easy to get the tyres up to temperature.

“We will be running the C1 hard tyres and last year, especially in FP1 they were very hard to warm up, but this time we have a bit more knowledge and experience and the weather will certainly be warmer this year.  So, we will face a different challenge to the ones from the first two races.”