Yuki Tsunoda says he enjoyed his time racing alongside Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri, insisting he learned from the Dutchman whom he said "had the pace" to race in F1.
Last week, Red Bull opted to replace de Vries with Daniel Ricciardo from this week's Hungarian Grand Prix, with Helmut Marko arguing that the 28-year-old had failed to fulfill expectations in his ten races with AlphaTauri.
Ahead of next weekend's round of racing at the Hungaroring, Tsunoda paid tribute to his now former teammate with whom he developed a personal friendship.
"I had an enjoyable time over the past ten races with Nyck," commented the Japanese driver.
"I learned from him, and we also had a good time away from the track.
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"He had plenty of experience in other categories and gave the team good feedback based on his knowledge. He had the pace and, as a friend, I enjoyed my time with him."
Although de Vries proved to be of little threat to Tsunoda, in qualifying or on race day, the 23-year-old is now up against an experienced veteran and eight-time Grand Prix winner.
©AlphaTauri
But Tsunoda believes he'll benefit from having the Red Bull reserve sitting on the other side of the AlphaTauri garage.
"I’m looking forward to working with Daniel," he said. "I can’t say I know him very well, but we had a fun day filming together earlier this year in Miami.
"I think I’ll benefit from having a very good, experienced driver as a teammate.
"I’m sure I can learn lots of things from him and I also expect he will be able to bring something to the team and move the car development forward."
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