Tsunoda “disappointed” to ‘lose more than a session’ in bid to match Gasly

The AlphaTauri rookie caused FP1 to be red-flagged for five minutes when he lost control of his car at the high-speed Turn 4 and spun backward into the barriers.

Having damaged the rear-end of his car, the 21-year-old Japanese racer was forced to sit out almost the entire afternoon session while AlphaTauri carried out extensive repairs. As a result, Tsunoda was limited to a single flying lap in FP2 as he finished the day a lowly 17th in the timesheets.

Tsunoda admitted he had got caught out while trying to match his teammate Pierre Gasly’s performance through the Hungaroring’s high-speed sections.

“I’m really disappointed with today, I made a mistake in FP1 and it meant that I’ve lost more than a session’s worth of running,” he explained.

“The rear of the car felt very nervous, especially in high-speed corners, and I was losing a lot of time there compared to Pierre. I was trying to improve in those areas, but I lost control of the car and I went into the wall.

"Unfortunately, the gearbox was damaged, and the team had to work really hard to get my car ready for the afternoon. The mechanics did a really good job getting the car fixed before the end of the session, so I was able to get one push lap in during FP2.

“It was really helpful for both the engineers and I to get this, so we can review the data tonight.”

AlphaTauri chief race engineer Jonathan Eddolls added: “Yuki was having quite a good FP1 up until the spin, which was unfortunate for him.

“He sustained some damage to the car which was fairly extensive and took quite a long time to repair. The mechanics did an excellent job getting the car back out before the end of FP2 and Yuki was able to get one push lap in before the end of the session.

“He completed this lap on the softs, however he ended up in the mix of cars doing long-runs, so we can’t consider his time representative of the real performance.

“It was always going to be difficult getting that lap in but thanks to the mechanics’ hard work we were able to check that everything on the car is ok and it will also allow Yuki to analyse the set-up changes we made to the car after FP1.

In contrast, Gasly was left delighted by AlphaTauri’s return to form after its disappointing British GP display as he followed up a P5 finish in FP1 with P6 in FP2.

“Very pleased with our performance today, especially after Silverstone,” he said.

“There was quite a lot of things to go through, we struggled quite a bit there. So it’s good to see we’re back with the performance, the car felt good even in these really hot conditions, so it was a really positive day.”