AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda reckons his former team mate Nyck de Vries “had the pace” to be in Formula 1 and said he “learned from him” during their 10 grands prix together.
De Vries lost his seat following the British Grand Prix two weeks ago, and has been replaced by Daniel Ricciardo – who raced for AlphaTauri a decade ago when it was known as Toro Rosso – for the rest of the season.
“I’m looking forward to working with Daniel. I can’t say I know him very well, but we had a fun day filming together earlier this year in Miami,” said Tsunoda.
De Vries had only made a single F1 start before joining AlphaTauri this year. Ricciardo is an eight-times grand prix winner with over 200 starts to his name.
“I think I’ll benefit from having a very good, experienced driver as a team mate,” Tsunoda continued. “I’m sure I can learn lots of things from him and I also expect he will be able to bring something to the team and move the car development forward.”
AlphaTauri has slipped from eighth to tenth in the constructors’ standings over the course of this season. Their most recent points finish came seven races ago.
Despite de Vries losing his place at the team before the season reached its halfway mark, Tsunoda said he played an important role in the team’s performance.
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“I had an enjoyable time over the past ten races with Nyck. I learned from him, and we also had a good time away from the track.
“He had plenty of experience in other categories and gave the team good feedback based on his knowledge. He had the pace and, as a friend, I enjoyed my time with him.”
The team hopes to lift itself from the bottom of the points standings after bringing the latest in a series of new parts for the AT04.
“For this weekend, we have more upgrades for the race in Hungary, on top of those we brought to the last race,” said Tsunoda. “Budapest has completely different track characteristics compared to the past two races, and its slow-speed corners should suit our car better than the high-speed ones.”
“As a team, we’re very motivated to go forward and develop the car as much as possible. In my mind, I’ve had a complete reset from the last few races, especially Silverstone, and I’m in a positive frame of mind.”
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2023 Hungarian Grand Prix
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