Yuki Tsunoda certainly wasn’t the happiest of drivers come the end of Free Practice 1 on Friday at the Miami Grand Prix, after the AlphaTauri driver was held up by Pierre Gasly.
The 22-year-old has become popular amongst fans for his typical foul-mouthed radio messages, which are usually heard on a Grand Prix basis.
He was at it again at the Miami International Autodrome as FP1 came to a close, with him having been furious with one of the Alpine drivers, who held him up at the final few corners.
“What the f*** is he doing, honestly? This idiot,” Tsunoda shouted over the team radio.
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“I don’t know Yuki, I have no idea,” replied his race engineer.
Despite Tsunoda’s understandable frustration, the incident didn’t really impact his finishing position in the opening session of the weekend, with it looking set to be a difficult one for the Faenza-based team.
Tsunoda was P18 in both FP1 and Free Practice 2; albeit, still ahead of team-mate Nyck de Vries who is under increasing pressure to perform.
Tsunoda’s best lap in the first session of the weekend was a 1:32.169, whilst his best lap in FP2 was a 1:29.613.
Speaking after the session, the Japanese driver admitted that the opening day in Miami had been “challenging”, with the Italians desperately needing to discover why they are lacking so much pace.
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“It was a challenging day because the pace does not seem great so far, so we need to find a solution to improve,” Tsunoda said at the end of the opening day, as per AlphaTauri’s press release.
“Compared to last year, our overall performance has increased and the track surface has improved, but we are still lacking quite a bit of pace compared to our competitors. We didn’t have any big upgrades coming into this race, so we’ll need to try a different approach for tomorrow.”
Tsunoda has had a mixed season so far in 2023, and Red Bull team boss Christian Horner recently said he isn’t ready for a promotion to the main fold just yet.