Yuki Tsunoda came up short in last weekend's Miami Grand Prix, the AlphaTauri charger concluding his race hot on the heels of Haas' Kevin Magnussen but just outside the top ten.
The Japanese driver qualified a lowly P17 but was on the move from the outset.
Banking on a long first stint on the hard tyre – like future race winner Max Verstappen – Tsunoda progressed all the way up to P8.
A switch to the medium rubber on lap 36 of 57 pushed him down the order from where he sought to recover. But the in-form Magnussen in P10 remained just out of reach, by just 1.364 seconds.
"Yeah, really tough – I literally gave it everything," said Tsunoda who fought hard to score his third consecutive P10 finish.
"I was pretty happy with the performance. It’s a shame that I couldn’t score points, but yeah, [I’m] happy with it."
Tsunoda's takeway from his trip to Miami was the confirmation of a more consistent level of performance.
"It’s good that I’m being consistent and hopefully I can be consistently in the points [in the future]."
The atmosphere was gloomier on the other side of the AlphaTauri garage. Although Nyck de Vries had made it home safe and sound in 18th position, the Dutchman rued a run-in with McLaren's Lando Norris right after the start at the first corner.
But De Vries owned up to a mistake that compromised his race.
"Obviously Lando had a very good start alongside me and we were approaching Turn 1 very quickly," he explained.
"He just got in front of me and I just simply locked up and we touched and ran wide.
©AlphaTauri
"From that point you’re obviously far behind, on the back foot, and without a Safety Car [being deployed] it’s hard to catch up those gaps.
"It was quite lonely [after that]. There was little tyre degradation, so lap times were improving all the time
"I was just looking after the front and that was pretty much it."
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