AlphaTauri rookie Yuki Tsunoda has accepted he needs to be “more relaxed” from the start of Formula 1 qualifying after his crash in France.
Tsunoda crashed out of Q1 at Paul Ricard, condemning him to the rear of the 20-car field, from where he recovered to 13th spot in the race.
It marked Tsunoda’s third qualifying accident of the season, having also crashed out of Q1 at Imola, as well as during Q3 at Baku.
Team-mate Pierre Gasly has qualified inside the top six at five of the seven grands prix held so far, failing to make Q3 just once.
“Normally, I tend to always push hard from the beginning of Q1 which I don’t have to,” said Tsunoda.
“It’s not necessary to do it as our car is consistently having good pace. It’s always got potential to go through to Q3 but I tend to always push from the beginning, the first push.
“Recently, in the last three races, I did two mistakes for the same reason – pushing too hard from the first push. That makes the whole qualifying finished.
“I’ve just got to be a bit more easy I would say, take a more different approach, to be more relaxed.
“And also, I would say I will build it up and be also confident from FP1. We will see how the approach works or not.
“Definitely, I have to change [my] approach and I don’t want to do mistakes again but still, I’ve got to push in the qualifying to have a good result as much as possible. Definitely, I’ve got to change [my] approach.”
