When Red Bull gave their raw 21-year-old rookie Yuki Tsunoda a second season in Formula 1 for 2022, it was easy to see why.
The youngest of the drivers in the field, Tsunoda had looked it out on the track. Often irritable, occasionally erratic, he had also shown more than enough potential over his first year to convince Red Bull to invest more in developing his skills.
In the twilight of his second season where, again, he was as ragged as he was racy, how many new conclusions are there to draw about Tsunoda and his level of talent than from 12 months ago?
Given the level of car performance most drivers enjoy when they first step up to Formula 1, Tsunoda had been dealt a decent hand with the AT02 in 2021. Unfortunately, its new ground-effect successor was not as potent, however that did not stop Tsunoda from starting his season off solidly with two points for eighth place – a decent recovery from being eliminated from Q1, seven tenths behind team mate Pierre Gasly.
Frustratingly, Tsunoda missed the second round in Saudi Arabia through zero fault of his own after a driveline failure on his way to the grid. But while Gasly took ninth place in Melbourne, Tsunoda struggled on hard tyres and fell down to 15th by the chequered flag.
If there was one weekend that demonstrated what Tsunoda was capable of when he gets everything right, it was Imola. Throughout a challenge sprint weekend where the weather wreaked havoc, he was quicker than Gasly in every session, finishing five places ahead of him in both the Saturday and Sunday races after catching and passing Kevin Magnussen and Sebastian Vettel in the later laps.
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But while Imola was clear evidence of Tsunoda’s driving talent, he was also developing a talent for drawing the attention of the stewards. By the time he woke up on Saturday morning in Monaco, only the seventh round of the championship, he had already received two fines and four reprimands – leaving him only one away from a grid penalty. Then, in that afternoon’s qualifying, he managed to ruin Gasly’s Q1 by causing a red flag by hitting the barrier at the chicane and dislodging it. In the race, he struggled on the drying track, dropping to the very back of the field and finishing last of all runners.
In Baku, Tsunoda put in an admirable performance that deserved to be rewarded with so much more….
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