Daniel Ricciardo admits 23-year-old F1 rival had a ‘really strong season’ last year

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AlphaTauri driver Daniel Ricciardo has admitted that teammate Yuki Tsunoda had a brilliant season last year.

Ricciardo was speaking on the Beyond The Grid Podcast about his return to Formula 1.

After a difficult 18 months at McLaren and then dropping off the grid altogether, Daniel Ricciardo was handed a lifeline by AlphaTauri.

He was brought back into the Red Bull camp as a reserve driver after being replaced by Oscar Piastri but it wasn’t long until he was racing again.

Nyck de Vries lasted just 10 races and after one exceptional test day, Ricciardo was in his seat.

De Vries was up against Yuki Tsunoda and the Japanese driver didn’t make life easy for his new teammates.

The AlphaTauri was one of the slowest cars on the grid at the time, but Tsunoda was the only driver scoring points.

It would have been interesting to see if De Vries’s fortunes would have changed if he had been given the entire season, especially as their development over the year saw them end the campaign with a faster car than the likes of Williams and Alfa Romeo.

However, Ricciardo has been quick to point out that Tsunoda had a brilliant season and as a formidable opponent when he re-joined the team.

The 23-year-old has shown his pace even if he’s accused of being too hot-headed at times.

Ricciardo praises Tsunoda after strong season

Talking about his first weekend back in F1 at the Hungarian Grand Prix, Ricciardo said: “I remember the out-lap, I started feeling like, oh yeah, I wasn’t too dusty.

“So, that was like my first quick impression and then it started raining and as the weekend went on, yeah Yuki [Tsunoda] was a few tenths quicker and I was just trying to find a little bit, a little bit and then qualifying I just stepped it up and found a little bit here and there.

“It was close, but I outqualified him and that was really nice because he had also had a really strong season up until that point and definitely obviously made life difficult for Nyck [de Vries], so for me to be let’s say on it straight away, I guess it confirmed a lot of the good feelings I had from the test.”

Tsunoda and Ricciardo will hope they can have an even stronger season heading into 2024.

Working more closely with Red Bull, they could life the team into the middle of the pack, competing with the likes of Alpine and Aston Martin.

As Ricciardo showed in Mexico City and Tsunoda in Abu Dhabi, both drivers are capable of producing stellar drives.

They just need the right car underneath them and to discover some more consistency so they can regularly challenge for points.