Yuki Tsunoda has admitted his surprise at RB’s pace gap to the teams ahead being minimal during the last stint in Formula 1’s Miami Grand Prix as he claimed seventh.
RB produced a stellar weekend, with Daniel Ricciardo taking fourth in the Sprint, while Tsunoda recovered to pick up a single point and then added six more on Sunday.
The Japanese driver progressed through to Q3 and then made another exceptional start to pass George Russell, who was unable to maintain speed with the RB driver.
“Very happy and yeah, first of all, very good job for the team,” Tsunoda said.
“This week we scored every race, every session, incredible week, and actually kind of we expected we’re going to have good performance but the most important thing is that we achieved it, you know, and we stick to our plan and I think we didn’t have many mistakes.
“That was a very good job and I’m very happy with it. Especially the last stint, even driving by myself, I was pushing and I was able to gain a lot of lap time and actually didn’t have much pace difference between the cars in front, which is a Ferrari or whatever, so it’s just good.
“To be honest, I had a big mistake one time, apart from that was a pretty good drive, yeah.”
RB is now heading to its home grand prix in Imola, which is situated close to the side’s base in Faenza, prompting Tsunoda to brand it as a “second home race” for him.
Having extended its advantage over Haas in the Constructors’ Championship now to 23 points, Tsunoda is bidding to maintain the Italian outfit’s gathering momentum.
“The next race in Imola is kind of another home race for me, so I hope we’ll be able to continue our rhythm and achieve a good result in front of our home crowd, especially people from the factory. Everyone is doing a fantastic job and we’ll definitely keep pushing,” he concluded.
