Yuki Tsunoda admits that he is feeling under more pressure following the arrival of Daniel Ricciardo at AlphaTauri.
Ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Ricciardo was called up to replace Nyck de Vries at the Red Bull sister team, with the Dutchman surviving just 10 races into the 2023 season.
Ricciardo, an eight-time grand prix winner, is seeking a return to the Red Bull Formula 1 squad in the future.
After struggling for two years at the McLaren team, Ricciardo impressed on his return in Hungary before having a quiet weekend in Belgium.
Tsunoda has been praised for his performance in the first half of 2023 having shown mixed form in his first two years in F1.
However, the Japanese driver says he is facing increased pressure since the arrival of Ricciardo.
“It’s hard, quite hard, challenging,” Tsunoda said. “But same time I know that this current situation is completely new for me.
“I’m learning a lot, especially got [a] challenge by [an] experienced driver.
“And not only [an] experienced driver, he’s not, you know, like a normally experienced driver – he’s just a top driver and we know that he’s fast.
“But also how he’s behaving in the team is like, totally opposite to me, so lots of things to learn, a lot from him.
“It’s also a bit of pressure for myself and probably that kind of made me [have a] rushy feeling and a couple of mistakes [at the] last couple of races.
“But yeah, able to put it all together in the last race, it was not easy. Just happy and feeling ready for a fight with him second half of the season.”
Tsunoda crossed the line at the Belgian Grand Prix in 10th place, taking his third point-scoring result of the year.
The 23-year-old has scored all three of AlphaTauri’s points so far in 2023.
