Yuki Tsunoda says AlphaTauri may currently be F1's slowest team. Along with McLaren, the Faenza-based outfit are the only team not to have scored Championship points over the first two races of 2023. Earlier this month, Team Principal Franz Tost publicly criticised the team, saying he had expected a much better car and had lost trust in AlphaTauri's aerodynamic engineers . Speaking after he and teammate Nyck de Vries had finished 11thand 14th in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Tsunoda acknowledged that AlphaTauri were currently towards the rear of the field. "To be honest, we’re not P6 or P7 in the Constructors' [Championship]," Tsunoda told the F1 Nation podcast. "We see in qualifying, especially, our consistency is a bit poor. To be honest, it's maybe P9 or P10, or P8, depending on the track."
Tsunoda hopeful of productive updates
Despite his downbeat assessment of AlphaTauri's current position, Tsunoda said he was hopeful that a series of planned updates would help the team vault up the order. "But I will say we still have 20 more races, we're planning a good amount of development through the year that we couldn't even achieve last year, so hopefully we can achieve those places," said Tsunoda. "It's important to develop the car with good updates every time, so we have, in the end, a good car. "Just have to extract the performance for now, wait for the opportunity to score points, and just keep working hard. If the opportunity comes, just [drive] flat out and score points."
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