F1 News: Yuki Tsunoda Will Fight Daniel Ricciardo For Red Bull Seat - "It's A Challenge"

Yuki Tsunoda has spoken about the rivalry with new teammate Daniel Ricciardo.

AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda has spoken about his new teammate Daniel Ricciardo ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Japanese driver was asked if there will be any rivalry between the two drivers as they both look to hopefully be 'promoted' to Red Bull eventually. 

Tsunoda explained to the media:

“It’ll be clear soon, but either driver will be slower and the slower guy won’t make it to Red Bull.

“That’s easy, the faster guy has more chance to go to Red Bull, it’s how it works in Formula 1, that’s it.”

AlphaTauri is currently in tenth position in the constructors' standings so the pressure is on both Tsunoda, who has scored the only two points for the team, and Ricciardo to move the team up the championship. 

It was confirmed last week that Ricciardo had replaced Nyck de Vries immediately, after the Dutch rookie participated in just ten races of the season. 

Tsunoda continued:

“It’s a challenge always. In the end it doesn’t make much difference, Daniel [Ricciardo] or Nyck [de Vries], whatever.

“Anyway I have to do the same thing I was doing to Nyck, you need to beat your team mate, that’s the most important thing.

“Daniel is not an easy driver to beat, but at the same time I’ll do what I did in the last couple of races and it’s clear the faster guy will stay or go up, that’s it.”

Tsunoda also explained that it will look better for him if he was to beat Ricciardo rather than de Vries as everyone had expected him to outperform the latter anyway. He added:

“Yeah I think it’s positive, Nyck came as a rookie and everyone expected me to beat him.

“That’s the normal thing. Daniel won multiple grands prix and has experience already in this year’s cars, McLaren.

“I think it’s good for me, but like you say, highly rated, so if I beat him, everyone starts to recognise more than a couple of previous races.

“But it’s not easy, he’s good, I know he’s good, and once he has confidence in the car I’m sure he will perform like Red Bull. In that case I can learn still, what he’s doing, why he’s able to achieve good results in the past, I can tell from the data, so I’m looking forward to it.”