Yuki Tsunoda has backed his AlphaTauri teammate Nyck de Vries to turn around his fortunes amid speculation that Red Bull could drop the Dutchman.
De Vries earned himself a promotion to F1 following his impressive one-off drive with Williams at Monza last year. But so far, the 28-year-old efforts have failed to impress Red Bull's Helmut Marko who recruited the former FIA Formula 2 and Formula E Champion.
Even worse, Marko recently acknowledged that Red Bull Racing's Christian Horner may have been right in expressing a negative view on placing de Vries at AlphaTauri.
"He [Horner] was not a fan of de Vries," Marko told the Inside Line F1 podcast. "I would say at the moment it looks like he was right."
However, Tsunoda believes his rookie teammate can step up his game, having demonstrated in the past during his career that he is one fast racer.
"I think Nyck just has to put it all together," Tsunoda said, speaking on Thursday in Austria.
"I think the pace is there, so he just needs to find a good rhythm because so far in most of the races probably he struggled a lot in terms of consistency.
"I think in the end he'll get there because in past races and past results, with what he achieved he's showing that he can do it, so I'm sure he'll get there."
One would recall that Tsunoda's fate with AlphaTauri was also called into question during his maiden season in F1 on the back of the Japanese driver's early struggles.
But Tsunoda felt that there were few similarities between the two drivers' situations when they graduated to F1.
©AlphaTauri
"I think it's a different situation with Nyck," he explained. "Why I struggled in the first half of my first year was not just my problem.
"Obviously, there were definitely a lot of places I could improve but it was not just my problem, and the team probably knew it.
"At the same time, it was my third year in Europe. Two years before I was in Japan and I never raced in Europe. So actually, they knew that I needed more experience.
"I think Nyck is showing good pace in free practice and a couple of qualifyings.
"He's just a bit unlucky because we're not in the fastest car right now, so it's hard to get good results and show a good performance."
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