Protected by Honda, Yuki Tsunoda has been part of the Red Bull Junior Team since last year, having impressed by winning the F4 Japan Championship in his second single-seater season. Having concluded the 2019 FIA F3 season in ninth place with the modest Jenzer Motorsport team, while discovering the circuits of the Old Continent, Tsunoda then joined F2 at Carlin and is one of the stars of this first half of the season.
The little Japanese boy almost won in his second Main Race, in the Red Bull Ring, where a radio failure prevented him from returning to the pit at the right time and cost him the victory; he still finished second, and since then he has signed two other podiums including a success at Silverstone. He thus occupies fourth place in the championship… precisely the one he needs to be eligible for the Super License next year.
The woes of Jüri Vips might just make Tsunoda the favorite for a tub AlphaTauri in 2021: six months ago, Vips was undoubtedly the star in the making of Red Bull following remarkable performances in F3 Europe then in FIA F3, but the COVID-19 pandemic is preventing him for the time being from running in Super Formula as expected, and the Estonian finds himself in the mediocre European Regional Formula championship, where he has not scored a podium in three races.
In a context where the performance of Daniil Kvyat are disappointing, Tsunoda could therefore pull out of the game and come to the fore at the right time … as a certain Kvyat had done at the end of 2013 by winning the GP3 championship, beating the pawn to the favorite António Félix da Costa for the Toro Rosso seat. The team is now called AlphaTauri, and its manager is full of praise for the Japanese driver.
“First of all, Red Bull and Honda are supporting Tsunoda because he is a fantastic rider”, declare Franz Tost. “He’s really talented, extremely gifted, and he showed it in Formula 3 last year, he showed it this year. I remember the race in Austria in the rain: he was leading, but because of radio problems he came home to change tires too late, and he finished second. Then, at Silverstone, he won the race. And it improves its performance. He’s more and more experienced, and I expect to see him sooner or later in an AlphaTauri, obviously. “
Tsunoda now only has to confirm by staying in the top 4 of a championship where other rookies such as Robert Shwartzman, member of the Ferrari Driver Academy, and Christian Lundgaard, Renault Sport Academy driver, who are respectively second and third in the General classification.
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