Yuki Tsunoda: New products have made us more competitive

Yuki Tsunoda posted the eighth fastest time in qualifying in Baku, marking AlphaTauri’s first time reaching the final since last year’s Singapore Grand Prix. His teammate Nick de Vries crashed the car without showing the time, and was allowed to start Sunday’s race by a separate decision from the stewards.

Yuki Tsunoda (8th): “First of all, I want to say that the whole team did a great job. Our car’s weak point is its speed on the straights, but everyone in Bicester has been working hard to prepare updates that have made us more competitive. I am satisfied with the result and look to the future with optimism.

It’s a pity that qualifying ended like this for Nick, because he was fast in training. I’m glad he’s okay.

I’m happy with my qualifications and the fact that I got the most out of the car. It was like a mountain fell off my shoulders when I got my first eighth place of the season at the start. This is a step in the right direction.

This weekend you can earn points, so we will keep working to get more speed out of the machine. We will try to score points in tomorrow’s sprint and Sunday’s race.”

Nick deVries (no time): “Very disappointing day. The car was fast in practice and I expected to benefit from that in qualifying. I was a bit lacking in speed at the start of the session – I need to find out what this is related to. I haven’t spoken to the team yet, so before jumping to conclusions [о причинах аварии]I want to study telemetry and understand what really happened.

On Saturday we hope to compete for seventh and eighth place. Historically, races in Baku are rich in events, especially starts, so let’s see what happens. The new products being brought to the track look promising and I will work with the team to improve for the rest of the weekend.”