Tsunoda at Monaco for the first time: "Couldn't follow it with my eyes at first"

Yuki Tsunoda, the rookie of Scuderia AlphaTauri, made his debut in Monaco last weekend. Except in games of F1, he had never had any experience in Monaco. So his first Monaco GP was in an F1 car.

Tsunoda certainly noticed this during his first laps in Monte Carlo. He told this in the F1 podcast Beyond The Grid "It was very fast. My first push lap felt really fast. Especially with F1 cars. At first, I could barely follow it with my eyes. It felt like I had to go a bit slower to avoid crashing and ending up in the wall. Luckily F1 cars have a lot of downforce, so that helped. So much speed and then barely any oversteer, that's incredible," the young Japanese said.

Tsunoda learns from moment in FP2

Because there was that moment. The damage of the moment in free practice two, where he hit the wall near the pool, was fortunately limited for him and the team. But it could have ended very differently. Despite the confidence in the car, Tsunoda, also after a warning from team boss Franz Tost, left some extra space as a result.

"I had to. Especially after my moment in FP2. During free practice, especially at this track, we need a lot of time on track. This is the only way to gain confidence. You need to know what the limit is on this track. Then you start pushing a bit more, which brings you closer to the wall again. You have to find the balance." Judging by his race last weekend, he wasn't taking extreme risks there either. Tsunoda was barely in the picture and ended up finishing sixteenth after a colourless race.