Tsunoda explains never-experienced-before grip

AlphaTauri rookie Yuki Tsunoda has revealed he has never experienced anything like the grip offered by Pirelli's softest tyre compound.

The highly impressive Tsunoda ended pre-season testing with the second-fastest time from the three days at the Bahrain International Circuit, with his lap of one minute 29.053secs falling just 0.093s shy of Max Verstappen's benchmark.

In the closing stages on Sunday, the Japanese driver focused on soft-tyre running, gaining experience of both the C4 and C5 compounds - the two softest in the Pirelli range that were used throughout the test.

“Definitely I enjoyed the C5 – the softest tyre," said Tsunoda. "It has big grip. I have never had an experience of grip like that, even when I was testing at Imola because there was much less grip.

“Definitely I enjoyed it and also from there we had good data.

"Sunday was a really enjoyable day, also for the learning, for my driving, for the tyre, also for the whole race simulation and the tyre management side. I had a good step forward and good data for Bahrain.”

Across the three days, Tsunoda completed 185 laps, 51 less than team-mate Pierre Gasly who topped the table with 236.

Despite the minor issues in the early stages of the test, Tsunoda enjoyed more stable running on Sunday and said he was able to focus on his driving.

"Sunday was a good day," he added. "Good progress, no issues and I was just focusing on my driving that I want to so this was good.

“These two days [Friday and Saturday] we had a little bit of bad luck but on Sunday we put it all together and I think the mechanics and Honda did a really good job and there was no issue.

“I was really comfortable to drive all day and achieved 91 laps so that is really, really good testing.”

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