Midway through the season, it wasn’t clear if Yuki Shunoda had stepped up in his second season, or if he’d gotten the rub of the green compared to his teammate.
After all, Pierre Gasly won just five points in the opening 13 rounds, which could make sense given his many encounters with his team-mate. He expressed frustration with Tsunoda after the qualifying session in Australia, then was inadvertently hurt by him again in Monaco, with Gasly’s practice pace showing he could finally score well in the unraced AT03.
The worst came at Silverstone, when Sundoda was directly responsible for his and Gasly’s scoring failure, knocking him off the track at Village.
But as the season unfolded, it became clear that Tsunoda, a diamond in the rough, looked much cleaner this year in 2021. He may not have been on the same level as Gasly, but the speed that Alfatauri saw him pull away from Formula 2 at the end of 2020 was clear. This was most evident in the qualifying scorelines: After dribbling 19-1 last year, Tsunoda entered 2022 level with his teammate.
Gasly has consistently done the best work on race days. In a season where points finishes were difficult, Gasly finished the year with nearly double his team-mate’s results, while Alfatauri’s best finish of the year was fifth in Baku. Tsunoda reached the top 10 once after the Spanish Grand Prix in May.
The gap could have been even greater if Gasly hadn’t been in trouble on his own so often. He collected a five-second time penalty for an unnecessary incident with Lance Stroll in Mexico (which he was penalized for trapping in Australia) and took the checkered flag 11th, less than a second behind Valtteri Bottas. Such incidents have brought the year dangerously close to reaching 12 penalty points, the threshold for an automatic ban.
That will be a concern for Gasly’s new team, Alpine. Going forward, Sundoda expressed his sincere hope that they were disappointed by their breakup, which is a testament to how much his best friend has benefited from their partnership. He has shown clear progress this year, and now he has to show what he can do with Nick de Vries to convince Red Bull that he deserves a chance in the top team.
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Non-representative comparisons were omitted. Negative value: Gasly was fast; Positive Value: Tsunoda was fast.
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2022 F1 season
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