The Japanese rookie has brought dash and verve to Formula One and is unfazed by sharing a grid with a host of world champions
There is a joyful exuberance to Yuki Tsunoda that is almost magnetic. The Japanese driver has brought dash and verve to Formula One and has been unafraid to pepper it with expletives. Refreshingly the 20-year-old, one of F1’s most exciting prospects, is unrepentant.
His rise has been positively meteoric but tangling at the sharper end of a grid populated by four world champions and some exceptional talent besides holds no fears for Tsunoda. “When I am racing I do not think about them,” he says without hesitation at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari before this weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in Imola. “Every driver is the same for me, they are the enemy. I don’t think about whether they are world champions or that it is an honour to race them, not when I am driving.”
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