Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri Formula 1 rookie, believes he would have lost sleep if he had not tried to outperform Lance Stroll at the Sakhir track.
The Japanese driver had managed to find himself at 10th place, which would have provided him with a debut point. However, at the final lap he attacked Stroll and stole ninth position which showed how much he means business at Formula 1.
Tsunoda had a frustrating session during qualifying where he struggled with medium tyres in Q2. However, he managed to be on 13th position while his team mate Pierre Gasly earned fifth place on starting grid.
His approached the race more cautiously, which cost him few places at the start for not optimizing his position.
“The last stint I think was the best one for me, also in tyre management,” he said. “I think for me it was a good pace compared to the other two stints.
“I passed Stroll at the last lap in the first corner. It was a really late launch, but I decided that if I couldn’t overtake him, I can’t sleep all night tonight!
“So I struggled really the last two laps, especially in dirty air from him. I did quite a lot of mistakes. So I’m really glad to pass him in the last lap.
“Happy, but also a bit disappointed I think, especially because I thought I lost too many positions in the first lap. Also it took time to recover the positions.”
Tsunoda was asked if he was disappointed with the results. He responded, “Yeah, maybe I’m aiming too high, maybe before this race!
“But for me I just saw that my teammate was doing a better job in the qualifying, and I was aiming for there, so of course I’m not a hundred percent happy.
“But like I say, I’m happy to get points first race, because that is a really positive thing for the team. So I’m not really disappointed. But I would say that I’ve learned a lot of things in this race, obviously.”
He also shared the lessons: “I think the most thing is the positioning for the first lap, especially like after the start. I was too cautious to not have any damage.
“I knew that the car is there, and the car had a good pace, but I decided I just had to be really cautious to not have any damage on the first lap. And also positioning the car, the start was really poor. So I think those things.”
