Yuki Tsunoda tells F1 teams “call me” after impressive Dutch GP cameo
Has Yuki Tsunoda put himself back on the radar of F1 teams?
Yuki Tsunoda has made a pitch for Formula 1 teams to “call me” after his impressive one-off return at the Dutch Grand Prix.
The Japanese driver was still on a beach in Greece when he got a last-minute call confirming he would be racing at Zandvoort last Tuesday, having been drafted in to replace Liam Lawson at Racing Bulls.
Lawson had himself been promoted to Red Bull for the weekend after Isack Hadjar was ruled out of the grand prix after injuring his wrist during the summer break.
Despite his lack of preparation, and having spent his time on the F1 sidelines since losing his Red Bull drive at the end of last year, Tsunoda turned in a respectable performance across the weekend.
Tsunoda qualified 12th and finished 11th in Sunday’s grand prix as he outperformed Racing Bulls regular Arvid Lindblad and narrowly missed out on a points finish.
“Honestly, I think I was able to progress faster than I expected,” Tsunoda said. “I drove only four times out of eight months since last year in Abu Dhabi, so with that, I did pretty well.
“Thanks to Red Bull, they kept me pretty sharp with the simulator and those things. But certainly, I definitely enjoyed it overall, and yeah, I think I gave it 100%, as much as I can. I think I did pretty okay.
“The challenging part was pretty much everything, a lot of things learning about deployment, buttons, everything – every procedure is different.
“This race was challenging for degradation, degradation characteristics were a lot different, so hard to adapt. Honestly, the team supported me a lot and they made it easy for me to drive as fast as possible.
“Obviously it's shame that I didn't score points. But I take it, fighting against top eight, top nine, until the last few laps, I would say.”
Tsunoda, who has been linked with a switch to IndyCar, hopes to have put himself back on the radar of F1 teams.
"I know what I can do,” he continued. “And I think I pretty much showed also what I can do to most of the paddock, with just one race, a couple of sessions. I was able to fight close to the points. I think the outcome was obviously better scoring points, but I think I did as much as I can for that.
“It's definitely better having this opportunity rather than not having any opportunity, not being able to show the paddock what I can do with these regulations. So I think that this was overall positive, and I think what performance I showed, I think, is positive.
“So it's up to my manager, and also other teams who are not decided yet about the next year's lineup, if they want to have me or not – but they should!”
When asked if he thinks his chances of a full-time F1 return had increased, Tsunoda paused before light-heartedly saying: “Call me, please!"
Lewis regularly attends Grands Prix for Crash.net around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.
