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

Yuki Tsunoda says he has “lea✅rned a lot of lessons” from his disappꦚointing Emilia Romagna Grand Prix F1 weekend.
After an impres🤡sive 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 quali꧑fying and then spun out while running inside of the points afte🔴r 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 hi🐻gh expectations for Imola and so had the team꧒.
“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 hadဣ 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 t🦹ime 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 P🌳rix, 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 ಞup 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 will𓄧 certainly be warmer this year. So, we will face a different challenge to the ones from the first two races.”

With a sharp eye for F1’s controversies and storylines, Connor is the hea🐻rtbeat of our unbiased reporting.