Yuki Tsunoda celebrated his new contract with AlphaTauri in style by making Saturday's top-ten shootout at Suzuka and qualifying a creditable P9.
Earlier in the day, Red Bull had confirmed that Tsunoda would enjoy a fourth season in F1 with AlphaTauri, the 23-year-old Japanese driver being paired with Daniel Ricciardo.
So there was perhaps an additional boost of energy inside the local hero to spur him on in qualifying. And Tsunoda put those positive vibes to good use as he made the Q3 cut for the first time since Monaco back in May.
The AlphaTauri charger will launch his home race from ninth on the grid, just behind Mercedes' George Russell and ahead of Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso.
"Definitely happy. It's just incredible, especially getting through to Q3 in [my] home Grand Prix," he enthused after qualifying.
"We struggled in the practice sessions, so the team did a good job and very good job by them. The car was great and looking forward to the race."
Tsunoda is looking forward to a drama-free race on Sunday, or at least to one that will carry him past the opening lap following his successive retirements in Monza, where he failed to start the race, and in Singapore where he suffered a first lap incident with Red Bull's Sergio Perez.
"The car was great and really fun to drive, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow," he said.
"I haven’t raced with the new package in Singapore, but Liam did a good job last weekend and performed nicely, so I’m not worried about the race.
©AlphaTauri
"I’ll go out and enjoy tomorrow with all the fans. It will be tricky because tyre degradation seems to be a challenge here, but it’s the same for everyone, so let’s see what we can do.
"Liam and I are both starting in good positions, so hopefully, we’ll both be able to score points for the team."
Indeed Lawson will launch his maiden Japanese Grand Prix from P11. The Kiwi admitted to being "frustrated" by just missing out on the top-ten shootout.
"It’s a bit frustrating not making it to Q3 by such a small margin," he commented.
"With the information we had after Free Practice, we weren’t expecting to be super strong, so we went quite aggressive with tyres in Q1 and only had one new set of the soft compound tyres left for Q2.
©AlphaTauri
"To be honest, I wasn’t super confident before qualifying, so I think we made the right call with the information we had, and Yuki did a great job putting the car in Q3.
"Now it’s about making the most of tomorrow’s race. I think it will be a long afternoon because the tyres are struggling a lot, but it’s the same for everybody.
"We have to focus on extracting the maximum out of our package and hopefully, both Yuki and I will have a strong race."
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