“Straight away I felt confident in the car and was able to put in some strong laps” – Yuki Tsunoda

Yuki Tsunoda knows his second place in second practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix is not representative of what is likely across the rest of the weekend, but he was confident behind the wheel of the AT-03 straight out of the blocks.

The Scuderia AlphaTauri driver sat out the first session at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez as the team used up their second young driver session with a run for New Zealander Liam Lawson, and as a result, he was one of only five drivers able to use the 2022 tyres.

He was pleased to get up to pace quickly before he switched his attention to running the 2023 prototype tyres as part of Pirelli’s tyre test, and he has high hopes of a strong performance in Qualifying on Saturday.

“I’m quite happy after FP2, of course it’s not that representative, but straight away I felt confident in the car and was able to put in some strong laps,” said Tsunoda.  “It was quite easy to adapt to the circuit, which I wasn’t expecting, so it’s been a positive FP2.

“I spent the start of the session just building up the pace and then I moved to the test tyres. As I missed FP1, I’ve got a lot of data to look through tonight and some more work to do in FP3, so that I can hopefully put it altogether for Quali tomorrow.”

“This morning straight away I was on the pace” – Pierre Gasly

Team-mate Pierre Gasly also felt positive about the potential of the AT-03 after finishing inside the top ten in both free practice sessions on Friday.

The Frenchman, who will move to the BWT Alpine F1 Team in 2023, ended ninth fastest in the one representative session and tenth in the second, although his session was completely dedicated to the Pirelli tyre test.

Gasly finished fourth in the same event last year, and he hopes that he can return to the points this Sunday after several weekends where he has struggled for performance or suffered bad luck.

“It’s been a great day,” said Gasly.  “In FP1, I felt good in the car, we know it’s quite a unique track as it’s at such high altitude, but usually this works quite well for us.

“This morning straight away I was on the pace, we know it’s super tight in the midfield so I hope tomorrow, when we put it altogether, we can fight for the top 10. This afternoon we can’t make many conclusions, as we don’t know the compounds we’ve been running, but generally I felt quite good in the car, which is the most important thing.

“It feels great to be racing back in Mexico, both at the track and away from it it’s absolutely hectic, but it’s fun to be back here and feel the passion of the fans.”