How Tsunoda plans to achieve his F1 potential

Yuki Tsunoda arrived in grand prix racing amid a whirlwind of hype, which only increased after his first race impressed the biggest wigs in Formula 1. His road since has been rocky and crash-filled, and OLEG KARPOV asks why Red Bull maintains faith in a driver who admits he isn’t really that big a fan of F1?

When he was already a racing driver, Yuki Tsunoda attended a school in his native Sagamihara that years before had also hosted Ukyo Katayama, the man who up to this day still holds the record for most Formula 1 starts among Japanese drivers. It's an amazing coincidence given that, before Tsunoda, F1 history included just 17 other racers from Japan, a country with a current population of 126 million people.

"And when I moved to a different high school, it was Takuma Sato's old school," a smiling Tsunoda reveals in a conversation with GP Racing. But then he admits right away that he only recently became aware of this - and, in fact, of who Katayama and Sato are at all.