Yuki Tsunoda “Super Happy” With Seventh-Place Finish at Imola

Scuderia AlphaTauri driver, Yuki Tsunoda, was happy with his seventh-place finish at Sunday’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix – which is tied for his third best finish in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship. The Japanese driver started in twelfth-place after gaining three positions in Saturday’s Sprint Qualifying session, and would work his way up to eighth place in the full-distance race to score six hard-earned points for AlphaTauri – with good overtakes on Magnussen and Vettel along the way.

It has been a good start to the year for Tsunoda, who finds himself leading team-mate, Pierre Gasly, in the the standings by a four-point margin. Tsunoda loved having AlphaTauri team members cheering him on from the grandstands, in what was the team’s home race. Tsunoda would’ve certainly made all of them very happy!

“I’m super happy with today, especially to score points at our home track. There are a lot of people from the factory watching here in the grandstands today, every lap I could see the AlphaTauri flags being waved and it gave me a great boost, so it feels like a big thank you to everyone that works so hard in the team.

“The pace of the car has been really good today, I didn’t expect it to be quite that strong heading into the race, but we’ve made progress through the week and I’m pleased with the performance we showed this afternoon.”

“We were all stuck in a DRS train” – Pierre Gasly

One of the main battles that was showcased during the 2022 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was the battle between Lewis Hamilton, Pierre Gasly and Alexander Albon for what would become eleventh-place after post-race penalties were applied.

Gasly found himself stuck behind the Williams Racing driver for the majority of the race, despite having the drag-reduction system as an advantage, as he was unable to close in on the straights and throughout the rest of the lap.

Hamilton, who failed to score this weekend for Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, was much faster than Gasly all race, but was neutralised by the Frenchman’s DRS, causing what is commonly known as a ‘DRS train’. As a result; both the Frenchman and the Briton were stuck behind Albon and unable to score points.

“It was a frustrating race, we were all stuck in a DRS train and with the top speed we had we weren’t able to do much.

“We’ve had really great performances in Quali up until this weekend, where sadly we didn’t perform well, which meant we were on the back foot from Friday. We need to go away and work out how to get back to a stronger Qualifying performance for the next race.

“I’m really excited for Miami, the track looks really good and I’m looking forward to race there.”

Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool.