‘Tsunoda spends all day doing the weirdest things’

Jamie Woodhouse
Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda using a laptop. Saudi Arabia, December 2021.

Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri, smile as they use a laptop together. Saudi Arabia, December 2021.

皮埃尔天然气曾这样描述他有趣的所以metimes embarrassing experiences as team-mate of Yuki Tsunoda.

Gasly has become the established lead driver at AlphaTauri, going from strength to strength since he was demoted byparent team Red Bullin the summer of 2019.

And for 2021 he had a new team-mate, that being Honda-backed Japanese racerYuki Tsunodawho made the step up from Formula 2.

Tsunoda struggled on the track in his debut season but did not have a problem with putting the beep machine into action, his potty mouth regularly making an appearance over the radio.

We also found out he loves food, that being a fairly common subject in interviews.

It seems Tsunoda is one of the bigger characters in Formula 1 and having worked with him as a team-mate, Gasly can confirm that.

In anAlphaTauri videowhere he answered questions from Reddit, Gasly was asked for his favourite thing about being Tsunoda’s team-mate, to which he replied: “Well, there are a lot of positive and good things about being Yuki’s team-mate.

“I would say the positive first one is he’s just a one-man show. The guy literally the entire day is just doing the weirdest things you could imagine.

“I don’t know, it’s just the way he is, he’s just a funny character.

“No filter, which can be quite embarrassing in some interviews sometimes, but that’s why we love him.”

AlphaTauri pair Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda are interviewed. Qatar November 2021.

So it was then on to a more creative Tsunoda-inspired question.

Would he rather fight one Yuki-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized Yuki’s?

Gasly declared that dealing with one Tsunoda is more than enough.

“I think one Yuki is…I think I’d rather fight only one because a hundred Yuki’s…just is going to be a real mess,” he said with a smile.

“So I’ll go with one [Yuki]-sized duck.”

Gasly went on to state that as an F1 driver, explaining to people how hard it is to drive an F1 car is one of the biggest challenges.

And aside from that, “dealing with Yuki is also a tough one”.

Luckily for Gasly he has another season of Tsunoda ahead, the pair remaining AlphaTauri team-mates for what is scheduled to be a record 23-race season in 2022.

Gasly deserves step up, but where to

Gasly has greatly exceeded expectations with Alpha Tauri and needs to be given the next step up.