YUKI TSUNODA
Red Bull and Honda rate him and we explain why
Despite its well-documented passion for motor racing, Japan has produced a mere handful of Formula 1 drivers. Not since Kamui Kobayashi’s staccato comeback with Caterham in 2014 has a Japanese driver lined up on a grand prix grid – until now. As a product of both Red Bull and Honda’s junior programmes, Yuki Tsunoda has experienced one of the fastest graduations to F1 since Max Verstappen, going from Japanese F4 to F1 in just three years. He is the first driver born this century to race in F1.
Such a rapid progression can be read one of two ways: either Tsunoda, like Verstappen, has the makings of a star whose time and talent would have been completely wasted in junior formulae; or such haste can be attributed to a need to maintain Honda’s interest and focus in the final year before its exit.
Yet the early signs from Tsunoda in F1 have been promising, going some way to validating Red Bull’s decision to place him at Alphatauri, and giving Japan hope that its new rising son could become its next F1 superstar.
Tsunoda first appeared on Honda’s radar following his success in Japan’s karting championships, and he entered the Honda Formula Dream Project in 2016. He finished second on his Japanese F4 debut in a one-off appearance at Suzuka before winning the JAF F4 East title in 2017, and dominated the national championship one year later, winning half of the 14 races and finishing off the podium just three times.
It paved the way for Tsunoda to move to Europe for 2019, coinciding with the first year of Honda’s partnership with Red Bull. An impressive display in the end-of-season GP3 test led to a deal with Jenzer Motorsport in the new FIA F3 series alongside races in Euroformula Open, as well as becoming a fully fledged member of Red Bull’s junior programme.
Life in Europe started slowly. Jenzer was hardly an F3 frontrunner (Tsunoda was the only one of its drivers to score points), and the limited window to get up to speed on new circuits posed a steep learning curve. “Most of the tracks I was at for the first time, but there was only one practice before qualifying,” Tsunoda recalls. “You had to perform well in qualifying to get good points. I struggled to adapt to the tracks, so couldn’t focus much on car setup.”
But Tsunoda made breakthroughs and learned quickly, making him a regular pointsscorer by mid-season. His starring moment came in soaking wet conditions at Monza when he charged from sixth on the grid to win the reversed grid race.
Ninth in FIA F3 might not have been a ringing endorsement to graduate to F2, but Red Bull junior chief Helmut Marko was happy with what he saw. Tsunoda was placed with Carlin for 2020, and tasked with achieving a top-four finish in the standings. It seemed ambitious, but Marko was convinced by Tsunoda’s “incredible racing ability”.
And Tsunoda showed that in bagfuls. He cured a “weakness” in qualifying Marko had identified, achieving a pole position during just his second F2 weekend in Austria, and almost won in wet conditions. He showed remarkable maturity, using the experience from his early F3 struggles to ensure his F2 graduation passed seamlessly.
“That hard situation made it better for adapting well in Formula 2,” Tsunoda says. “That experience was really useful, adjusting to the car.”
As Tsunoda closed on a top-five finish to get the required points for an FIA superlicence, Red Bull leapt into action to get him F1 ready. A private test at Imola in an old Toro Rosso car suggested the plan was for him to race with Alphatauri in 2021, but he didn’t let this distract him from F2. He ended the year with victory in the Sakhir feature race and came close to a rare weekend double, finishing second in the sprint event. It meant Tsunoda ended 2020 third in F2; had only feature races counted for points, he would have been champion ahead of Mick Schumacher and Callum Ilott.
Following an outing for Alphatauri in the Abu Dhabi young driver test, F1’s worst-kept secret was announced 10 days before Christmas when Tsunoda was named as Pierre Gasly’s
“YUKI MADE REALLY GOOD PROGRESS IN ALL HIS TESTS. HE WAS VERY WELL PREPARED. EVERYTHING IS RUNNING SMOOTH AND WELL, AND WE HAVE A REALLY PROFESSIONAL AND GOOD RELATIONSHIP” FRANZ TOST
team-mate for 2021, replacing Daniil Kvyat. For Marko, Tsunoda’s quality and potential was simply too great to ignore.
Yet no matter how good a young driver may be, making your F1 debut in 2021 of all years was an unenviable task given the limited time available in the Bahrain test – just three days. Alphatauri sought to aid Tsunoda’s acclimatisation by conducting further tests at Imola and Misano, and his conduct impressed team principal Franz Tost. “Yuki made really good progress in all his tests,” Tost says. “He spent a lot of time talking to the engineers, so they could instruct him with all the technical details. He was very well prepared. Everything is running smooth and well, and we have a really professional and good relationship.”
Tsunoda also worked hard to embed himself within Alphatauri over the winter. Not wishing to return to the UK amid tough COVID-19 restrictions and quarantine rules, Tsunoda spent all of January and February in Italy, allowing him to get to know everyone at Faenza.
Gasly was quickly impressed by his new team-mate. “He’s a nice guy,” he says of Tsunoda. “He’s funny and easy-going. Everything went very well. He’s really talented, with what he’s shown in the lower series, and very quick to adapt himself to the new cars and championships. That’s a good quality to have in Formula 1.”
And this ability to adjust swiftly, a trait ingrained in Tsunoda through those difficult months in Europe, was clear in pre-season testing. On the final day he put in a solid race simulation in which he got quicker and quicker, then during some late qualifying runs he racked up some of the best times of the day. Tsunoda finished second overall, trailing Verstappen by just 0.093s. Seeing his star juniors finish 1-2 pleased Marko, and he hailed Tsunoda’s display as “sensational”. DRS shenanigans aside, what’s all the more impressive is that Tsunoda was not quite comfortable in the Alphatauri cockpit – at 5’2” he’s considerably shorter than Kvyat, and modifications had to be made to enable him to reach the pedals.
Aged 14 Tsunoda was at Suzuka, watching as Verstappen made his F1 race weekend debut in FP1. Now he is tasked with emulating that same precocious talent. But it’s a challenge Tsunoda is ready to take in his stride. “Max performed very strongly in his rookie year,” Yuki says. “I hope I can have it like that rookie season this year.”
It will be at Suzuka where Tsunoda will feel his full status as Japan’s next F1 hero, but he’s already getting a taste for it. “I receive lots of messages from Japanese fans on social media,” he says. “I know already how they feel. There was no Japanese F1 driver for seven years, so they’re definitely excited. And I am as well. I’m really looking forward, especially to Suzuka, to drive an F1 car in front of the Japanese fans.”
As Honda prepares to bid farewell to F1, the nation’s future in grand prix racing lies largely in Yuki Tsunoda’s hands. But if he can harness the lessons of his junior career and adjust to life at the highest level as quickly as he has done previously, Tsunoda could be ready to shoulder the responsibility for keeping Japan’s passion for F1 on the boil.