Yuki Tsunoda: “I’m quite happy with today, especially with the start”

Yuki Tsunoda was happy with his performance and result in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix as he climbed from sixteenth on the grid to finish eighth.

The Scuderia AlphaTauri driver admitted he was lucky to gain a couple of positions in the final few laps as both Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez retired whilst running inside the top four, but overall, he believed his had a strong day at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Tsunoda made a good start to gain a few places off the line, and he made no mistakes throughout the fifty-seven-lap event, and he was rewarded with four points and a second consecutive top ten finish in Bahrain having scored a debut ninth place there in 2021.

“I’m quite happy with today, especially with the start as I was able to make up a few places,” said Tsunoda. “I had a little bit of luck near the end, as some cars had failures, but overall I’m pleased with how today went.

“We’ve still got a lot of work to do to be able to fight consistently at the top of the midfield, but we’re confident that we can develop the car to continue to improve our performance.

“We’ll go away and analyse the data from this whole weekend to try and find what our main limitations are ahead of the race next week.”

“This is not the start to the season I was hoping for” – Pierre Gasly

Team-mate Pierre Gasly was 2022’s first retirement, with the Frenchman suffering a terminal issue that left him stranded at the side of the road with the car alight.

Gasly was on course for a top ten finish, perhaps as high as eighth, but his retirement and the subsequent safety car helped shake up the pack in the closing laps.

The one-time race winner admitted it was disappointing to lose out on points in the opening round of the season, but he said it was good fun to be battling on track again and he will be looking to break into the top ten in next weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. 

“This is not the start to the season I was hoping for, the whole car just switched off outside of turn one, and then I started to smell the burning,” said Gasly. “It’s such a shame as I had a really good start, I was able to pass Fernando [Alonso], then Kevin [Magnussen] when I got the chance, and we were running quite comfortably in P8.

“We lost some important points, but there’s still lots of positives to take from today. I was quite surprised with the pace and it’s looking pretty good for the next few races. We obviously need to understand the failure we had but I’m sure we’ll find a solution.

“I had some good battles, it was fun to be back racing and I’m looking forward to next week already.”

Pierre Gasly was on course for points until his retirement – Credit: Lars Baron/Getty Images