F1 News: Yuki Tsunoda's Performance Being Closely Assessed - "Needs To Take Next Step"
VCARB team principal Laurent Mekies emphasizes the importance of Yuki Tsunoda's performance in the 2024 season, indicating that the team is eagerly anticipating Tsunoda's progression. With Daniel Ricciardo acting as an excellent reference point, Tsunoda has the opportunity to showcase his development and further solidify his position within the team.
Key Takeaways:
- VCARB team principal Laurent Mekies highlights the importance of Yuki Tsunoda's performance in the 2024 Formula 1 season, with Daniel Ricciardo serving as a crucial reference point for Tsunoda's development.
- Tsunoda, entering his fourth season in Formula 1 after debuting with the team in 2021, aims to bridge the gap to faster drivers on the grid.
- Mekies discusses Tsunoda's evaluation process, emphasizing continual improvement and strong team relationships. Despite a decent start in 2024, Tsunoda seeks better strategies to secure points.
Having debuted with the team in 2021, formerly known as AlphaTauri, Yuki Tsunoda now enters his fourth Formula 1 season. He maintained consistency and stability in performance through these years, and thus, Mekies hinted that perhaps the time has arrived for him to 'take the next step' and fill the gap that separates him and faster drivers on the grid.
Speaking on the Beyond The Grid podcast, Mekies highlights how Tsunoda is being assessed for the future. He said:
“It's fantastic in the way we are evaluating Yuki, the way we are trying to grow Yuki, to have Daniel with him.
“It gives a fantastic reference point and, therefore, for us, it's as good as it gets to have the experience and the speed of Daniel, to have the raw speed and youth of Yuki.
“What we are looking for from Yuki is that he does that next step. The top guys, they make steps. They come and understand something more about the tyres, they will be able to go faster in given situations.
“The core feelings they have in the car, how they link what they feel in the car with what they exchange with their engineers, how deep the relationship they can build with the team is. If you have the bandwidth for that, your understanding of the car increases.
“If you have the capacity to utilise it when you’re driving then you will go faster. Yuki is growing this capacity year after year and this is why there is still speed to come. He has been surprising the F1 world every single year. He's in the fourth year. Is he going to keep surprising? That's the question we have to answer.”
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Fortunately for Tsunoda, the 2024 season has got off to a decent start as he was one position below Ricciardo in Bahrain. In the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, he managed to outperform his teammate by two positions in P14. However, a better team strategy could have elevated him to finish within the points.