Tsunoda on working with Ricciardo: 'Already learning a lot from him'

Yuki Tsunoda picked up points twice this season. In Australia and Azerbaijan, the Japanese finished tenth, but those were also immediately his last points (and those for AlphaTauri). Tsunoda tells Belgium that he feels that the AT04 is making progress, although it is not yet enough to finally join the midfield. Moreover, he reveals he is happy with his new teammate.

Daniel Ricciardo has had a week and a half with the team now. The 34-year-old driver is hugely experienced with 233 races behind his name in Formula 1 and Tsunoda is benefiting from that. "I think it's good. Learning lots of things from him already. It's fun to do filming with him on Thursday. Thursday became slightly more fun, I think, for the content. But other than that, not much difference. Yeah, it's good," he says of Nyck de Vries' replacement.

Is Ricciardo's feedback similar to his own? "What I'm saying and what Daniel is saying is quite similar. I've obviously just had one race and Hungary is a little bit difficult to say, but so far there's not much difference."

New wings

Results have been poor for the Faenza-based racing team, but updates should mean a leap forward. "I smashed my front wing in FP1 [Hungary]. It's my fault. But rear wing, we definitely made a step. To be honest, I don't know a new upgrade about the front wing because sadly, it's gone in FP1 for me. But I think other than that, we made a step with the rear wing. [...]. But I think still with the overall package, we’re missing performance a little bit compared to where we want to."