F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Tost: Tsunoda radio tantrums 'hurt him and hurt the team'

AlphaTauri team boss Franz Tost says Yuki Tsunoda needs to keep his temper under control in the heat of moment as the radio outbursts can not only hurt the Japanese driver but also his team.

Tsunoda concluded his first season in Formula 1 on a high in Abu Dhabi where the AlphaTauri charger finished an impressive fourth.

But overall, the 21-year-old's maiden campaign at the highest level was a mixed bag although Tsunoda's progress was notable in the second half of the season.

However, the young gun often displayed a fiery propensity to erupt over his team's radio when caught up in a heated moment on the track with a rival, producing expletive-filled rants that have often forced his race engineer to intervene to calm him down.

"This is definitely now my weak point and I have to really improve on my radio communications," Tsunoda said earlier this year. "I don’t know why I get too heated up."

Tost obviously agreed but the Austrian admitted that the outburst were also part of an F1 driver's natural and necessary aggression.

"You can say to him, 'Please don’t say this, it's not good for your image, it’s not good for the team, be quiet' and then he closes the visor, sits in the car, has a problem for whatever reason, and he gets upset," explained the AlphaTauri boss, quoted by RacingNews365.

"People must understand this is an F1 car. There must be an aggression from the drivers, it's not just rolling around. They must have this adrenaline otherwise they can't show this performance."

"I will request him not to do it. He can shout to himself and not switch on the radio. It hurts him, and it hurts the team."

Red Bull motorsport boss Helmut Marko agrees that Tsunoda's rants are especially detrimental to the young charger's image in his home country.

"His language isn’t very Japanese," Marko said. "It gives him bad publicity back in Japan. I'm not sure if he knows the meaning."

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Michael Delaney

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