Yuki Tsunoda is at the end of his third year at AlphaTauri. He reflected on his current season and revealed the work that is still to be done, as the driver spoke to PitDebrief. Despite being Red Bull’s sister team, AlphaTauri failed to deliver a consistent car in the first few races of the season. The AT03’s record was marred with a severe lack of top speed and was even marked as the slowest car at a few opening rounds of the 2023 season.

Tsunoda, however, looked back fondly on the first half of the season as he remembered his consistent P10 and P11 finishes in the first few opening rounds. The 23-year-old said, “I would say I was pretty happy with the first half of it consistency-wise, especially with the difficult situation and because of the difficult performance from the car.” Tsunoda further talked about an indispensable skill of a Formula 1 driver ‘extracting the maximum of the provided car’.

The AlphaTauri driver commended Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen for being the masters at this craft. The Japanese Driver expanded on how he needs to employ this skill in his race craft to improve his skills, he said “I know I need more. Compared to Lewis or Max, there is still a lot more room to improve.” Tsunoda is slated to return in his AlphaTauri seat for the 2024 season. The youngster will be fighting tooth and nail in 2024 to keep his seat for 2025 as the brilliant Liam Lawson will be in contention.

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AlphaTauri stand-in Lawson spoke about when his ‘drinks tube’ was stuck in his nose at a race

The Kiwi youngster impressed the entire paddock with his short stint in the Championship for AlphaTauri beside Yuki Tsunoda. Many can remember him knocking out Max Verstappen early at the Singapore GP Qualifying sessions. The driver got his chance at Grand Prix racing after Daniel Ricciardo’s unfortunate crash and the following injury at the Dutch GP. Lawson, while appearing on The Project, recounted a horrific incident that took place at the Italian GP and hilariously scoffed at it.

The Italian Grand Prix was Lawson’s second-ever Grand Prix, the youngster was still only warming up to the functioning of a Grand Prix weekend when disaster struck. Apparently, the ‘drinks tube’ got stuck in his nose while he was still driving around Monza. Liam Lawson spoke of the incident, “We do have a drink tube. For me, it’s a new thing; I never had that before. I swear, the first time I used it in Italy, I didn’t adjust the tube or anything, and I just left it how it was in the helmet, and when I went to use it, it got stuck in my nose”

Lawson, after confessing about not having used the drink tube before went on to light-heartedly laugh the incident off. It is highly unlikely for Lawson to appear in the AlphaTauri in the first half of the season. It will be interesting to see whether Red Bull decide to do their customary ‘switcheroo’ between their drivers and decide to give a seat to Lawson during the mid-season.

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