Yuki Tsunoda: “It was a bit of a surprise to make it through to Q3”

Scuderia AlphaTauri came back from a difficult practice three session to having both drivers improve on their positions in qualifying as Yuki Tsunoda secured ninth place and Pierre Gasly earned eleventh place ahead of Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort.

The Japanese driver came into qualifying with the hope of improving on his practice three finish earlier in the day which saw him place sixteenth. Tsunoda was able to make it into the top ten after just beating his team-mate to make it into the final round of qualifying and place ninth on the grid.

Tsunoda spoke after qualifying feeling very happy with his performance as he felt a little surprised to be in the top ten. Tsunoda explained that he was able to get more out of the car in qualifying compared to practice three as he’ll be hoping that he can finish in the points tomorrow.

“I’m really happy about our Quali performance today. If I’m honest, it was a bit of a surprise to make it through to Q3, considering our pace in FP3, but we made some good changes to the car after practice, I was then able to put it all together and extract the maximum performance from the car.”

“The hard work from the team has really paid off this afternoon and making it through to Q3 is really positive, so I’m pleased with how we’ve improved today. Now we’ve got to concentrate on the race, we’ve got a lot of strong data to look through, so we need to work hard tonight to allow us to try and finish in the top 10 tomorrow.”

Pierre Gasly: “we have to be pleased with our performance today”

Credit: (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)

Pierre Gasly also struggled like his team-mate in practice three but was able to turn it around in qualifying as he secured eleventh place on the grid ahead of Sunday’s race.

Gasly spoke after qualifying feeling more positive at the end of Saturday than at the start of the day. He admitted that the team made big improvements heading into qualifying as he just missed out on a top ten position. He’ll be hoping that a points finish will be on the cards for the race tomorrow.

“At the end of the day, considering where we were in the practice sessions, we have to be pleased with our performance today. We’ve made a big step-up from FP3, and we just missed out on making it through to Q3 this afternoon. For the race tomorrow, the aim is to gain as many places as possible off the line, as we’re starting from P11, and then hopefully come home in the points.”