Yuki Tsunoda has admitted that he set too high a bar for himself to start his rookie season in F1. The Japanese youngster, making his debut in Formula 1 with AlphaTauri this season, has had a tumultuous start to his year. After a strong start with a points finish in Bahrain, Tsunoda had a big fall back down to earth with a qualifying crash in Imola and his season has been marred by spins, incidents, and Q1 eliminations since. Tsunoda is now out to right some of those wrongs, and steady the ship after a few barren weekends, and he has explained some of the troubles he's been having as he adjusts to life in Formula 1. "Yeah, I think for me, I'm not feeling like fully controlling a car still," Tsunoda admitted to Tom Clarkson on the Beyond the Grid podcast. "But up to like, for example, 80% or 70%, it was not too difficult. Just like you have more downforce, you can just have more confidence to go out and send it in the car. "With Formula 2, we have a heavier car, more unstable on entry especially so you can feel the car more. "In Formula 1, if you go above the limit, you just have a snap and go into the barrier. "So until you find the limit, it's not too difficult but it's hard to find the 99 or 100 percent limit without any, for example, crash or spin." Tsunoda explained that his strong weekend in Bahrain to start the year led to him setting the bar for himself too high, and outlined that he was even trying to do fully committed laps in Q1 in Imola, leading to his crash. "I think, especially from Bahrain, when we were good even like having mistakes in qualifying Q2 and dropped out in Q2, but still went well. And I got points in the first race," Tsunoda explained. "So I think from there, especially, I aimed quite high. The next race was Imola. And I was aiming for, like, top five like that. So I think, for sure, I was aiming too high and qualifying, I tried to put like amazing lap, dream lap and especially in Q1, you don't have to do that kind of lap in Q1. "My attitude and motivation was like that and went to the wall. So I think, in the beginning of the year, I was aiming too high."
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