Alonso’s proposal that left Tsunoda speechless: “My head exploded”

Yuki Tsunoda, 22 year old F1 driver (AlphaTauri) who in 2023 lives in his third season in Formula 1 with the ‘B’ team of red bullis the star of the recent episode of Official Formula 1 Podcast, Beyond The Grid. Here, the Japanese revealed that he has been a “Fernando Alonso fan since he was 12 years old” and that he is already trying to understand the lines and the way the Oviedo driver rode back then, when he was young, when he joined. his father at the Suzuka circuit to see the F1 Japanese GP.

In this sense, he stressed that he respects “of all the pilots”, but “of Alonso the most” for those memories as a child, of his father telling him to pay attention to what Fernando was doing on the track. But not only for that, but also for things that he himself experienced in his own flesh, like in the 2021 F1 Hungarian GP, ​​where he saw how Alonso was able to widen the track to stop Hamilton ., driving a superb car, to allow Ocon to win that crazy race. The Japanese ensured that this helped him to improve his track defense against Hamilton himself in the following Turkish GP.

The man from Oviedo also enhances the detail that the Asturian has in him. Tsunoda revealed in this interview that he wanted to ask Alonso for a helmet, but he didn’t have the courage to do so. “my head exploded”he said in relation to the moment he saw Fernando Alonso asking him to exchange that helmet.

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“He’s very nice, a great guy. We changed helmets, something I wanted even before I became an F1 driver. But I was nervous to ask him (to Fernando), so I didn’t tell him. But last year (2022), about the Spanish F1 GP, he asked me. My head exploded. I’m super happy I tried not to act stupid in front of him, but my heart was excited. The first thing I did was call my father.”He commented on that helmet exchange.

“I had a different image of Alonso before I met him. I expected him to be like a legend and not as close as he really is. My car is a little too far to fight here, which is what I want to do now.” added to Asian from AlphaTauri.

“I still can’t believe I’m running with him, he’s incredible. I never would have expected it”He said about Oviedo.

Hallucinated by his defense of Hamilton in Hungary 2021

“This is the race where Lewis (Hamilton) started alone on the grid and everyone ended up in the pits. Because of his wrong approach he had to try to pass everyone. When he came to me, logically, I tried to defend myself as much as possible but he passed me, about four turns. Fernando is in Alpine, with a car with the same performance more or less than my Alpha Tauri, he defends 10 laps from Lewis. I don’t remember if he managed to pass him at the end (he did, but there was no time to go for Ocon’s victory). I watched that race again later because Alonso impressed me.”

He studied what Alonso did in Hungary

“I tried to understand how he was trying to get an advantage over Mercedes, even though Mercedes is a faster car. The last corner in Hungary was very difficult because you need downforce (aerodynamic support) and you are not very close to the car in front because of the dirty air, and Fernando knew that, so he tried to get as much as possible on the last corner to take advantage of that. and that he can’t outrun him on turn 1 or 2, which usually has some choice.”

He applied Alonso’s strategy to Türkiye

“In Turkey (2021) I had to defend myself again against Hamilton and I did it in a different way (to what he did in Hungary 2021), I was trying to copy what Fernando did (in Hungary), and I was able to defend myself for eight laps at that time.”

At Suzuka, he tested Alonso with his father at the age of 12

“I am a fan of Fernando because my father admired him. When I was 12 years old we were sitting in the grandstand of the last corner of Suzuka. (in the Japanese F1 GP), which is not an easy point because you can’t easily go all the way. My father showed me how Alonso drew that curve, at the maximum and outside, very close to the white line. There, if you touch the grass, you go straight to the wall, but Alonso keeps sticking to the line with a lot of movement behind the car.”