Yuki Tsunoda admitted he could have tried harder to attack Liam Lawson for fifth place in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver said he held back because he didn’t want to risk helping his team mate’s rivals in the drivers’ championship.
Lawson, Tsunoda and McLaren’s Lando Norris were covered by less than a second at the finish. Tsunoda said he held back from risking a pass on Lawson because he did not want Norris to get past him or his rival. Norris is 44 points ahead of Tsunoda’s team mate Max Verstappen in the drivers’ championship.
Tsunoda said the second stint was “very hard” as he tried to find a way past Lawson without offering an opportunity for Norris to attack.
“Especially [with a] McLaren behind, [I was] thinking about the championship, both the team and drivers’ championship for Max,” Tsunoda told the official Formula 1 channel.
“There were a lot of opportunities I could probably go inside and attack Liam, but there’s a lot more risk that maybe the McLaren will overtake both of us, or either [of us],” he said.
“So I think as a Red Bull [driver], you don’t want to have that, and I think I did the right decision [by] not challenging him. But at the same time I didn’t have enough pace also to overtake comfortably.”
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Tsunoda scored his best result of the season so far in Baku with sixth place. He said he is feeling happier in the car following recent changes to its set-up and has begun adopting some approaches used by his team mate.
“It’s something that gives me more confidence in the future,” he said. “We made a couple of changes to the car. I got [a lot of] support from the team.
“Also I put some effort into my long run. Last week I saw some trends that Max is doing a little bit differently compared to myself and I had the idea and immediately translated it to the simulator and I felt something good there.
“But obviously translating it onto this real track is a [very] different story. I was able to try some multiple steps and FP2 showed some good steps with that. It paid [off] really [well] from the simulator.
“It’s not the level that I want yet, but I think from the changes to the car, it helps a lot for myself. Also, some bits from my driving style matches well with these changes so I’ll just keep what I’m doing now and progress more.”
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