How Tsunoda has eliminated a crucial F1 limitation

A group of people armed with guns, standing shoulder to shoulder, are finding themselves being charged at by zombies.

“I don’t want to do this!” screams one of them. “I don’t want to do this!”

The footage, from inside one of London’s virtual reality game rooms, is enshrined on the phone of performance coach Michael Italiano. And the screaming voice belongs to a Formula 1 driver he works with, Yuki Tsunoda.

“Yuki hasn’t spent much time in London,” the Australian, formerly the trainer of his childhood friend Daniel Ricciardo, tells GP Racing. “And I’ve been living in London for six years so, when he got there, he was like, ‘Show me something
I haven’t done yet’.

“And I knew he loves shooters! So I picked the scariest zombie game. But before we put our equipment on, I could see he looked really nervous. I’m like, ‘Are you okay, mate?’ And he goes, ‘I don’t like zombies!’ And I was like, ‘Look, you’ll be fine’. And he goes, ‘No, no, no, can we change this?’ And I’m like, ‘No, it’s too late, right? We are in here, we’re doing it’.

“So, right at the start, when the first zombie comes at us, he’s screaming! He’s like, ‘I just want to back out’. But then he loved it – he didn’t want to take the goggles off! And at the end, you get the stats – and he actually won, he got the most kills. So he had the bragging rights. But at the start, he was being a little wuss, it was quite funny.”

Tsunoda has a good relationship with his trainer Michael Italiano after the pair bonded over a zombie game

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

The coach as driver-whisperer

“Of course I won. I cannot lose to him!” Tsunoda laughs, corroborating Italiano’s description of events. “Yeah, I don’t like the zombies and all this kind of scary stuff. I can’t even watch horror movies alone. So, OK, I was a bit scared at first, but then got used to it, and actually enjoyed it a lot. You sort of feel like being in a movie or something, shooting zombies, which is cool. And in the end, I won. So I’m happy.”

This was all part of the getting-to-know-you process at the start of the year, when Italiano took over from Tsunoda’s former trainer Noel Carroll, who had decided to step off the F1 merry-go-round. Italiano had become available just at the right time, thanks to Ricciardo (now, by coincidence, Tsunoda’s neighbour in the AlphaTauri garage upon his return from injury and for next season too) becoming Red Bull’s reserve driver and no longer requiring a full-time performance coach.

Having moved to Europe from Japan just five years ago, which meant adapting to a very foreign culture and environment as well as new tracks and a different racing landscape, Tsunoda points out it was important for him to have “not only a working relationship” with his trainer.

"He’s changed. I wouldn’t say he hates training. I think he understands the importance of it now" Michael Italiano

“You’ve got to spend together more time than with our parents, and probably more than with anyone else,” he explains. “So, I don’t want it to be like… just business. It’s good to have both, a coach and a friend at the same time. You know, spending time with someone most of the year, I don’t want to waste my energy. I actually want to reduce stress, to have fun.

“I was worried about it at first. During the winter we had two weeks of training camp in Dubai – having never actually spoken properly with each other before it. But from the first day, we got along straight away.”

Italiano agrees: “On Yuki’s point, I mean, because you spend so much time together, you do need to get along. Simple as that.

“I’ve only worked with one driver before – and we were already friends. So, with Yuki, I was a little bit curious. Not nervous, just curious as to how it was going to go. And the way we started was probably... it literally just threw me in the deep end, because we met for about 30 minutes for a coffee in Abu Dhabi, the last race of 2022.

Italiano joined Tsunoda after working with Ricciardo and picked up where the Japanese left off with his previous trainer Noel Carroll

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

“You can’t really gauge much in half an hour of a coffee meeting. That was just to make sure Yuki was happy with the transition. The next time we actually met was in Dubai for training camp.

“Thankfully he liked my stupid humour. So, yeah, I understand when Yuki says you need to be friends. I would say the same on my side: for me, to enjoy my role as a coach, it’s better if you are. So, that same day when we did VR, he met my sister and her boyfriend. He met my family and my girlfriend, so that was nice. And we all had dinner together.”

How to fight the ‘Netflix effect‘

Tsunoda is a unique customer, though, especially when it comes to training. F1 is good at making labels stick – and at least three have attached themselves to AlphaTauri’s Japanese driver over his two and a half years on the grid. Thanks to a certain ‘documentary’ series and the amplification factor of social media, the popular image of Tsunoda can be summed up thus: he’s shouty on the radio, loves a hearty meal… and hates working out.

“Alright,” smiles Italiano when asked about the accuracy of those labels. “I mean, you could probably add a fourth. He loves singing. You can’t shut him up in the car. I’m learning Japanese pop by listening to him while we drive. It’s painful...

“About the other ones... Well, shouting on the radio, we’re getting better. He loves his food, yes. And the third one? No, I’d say he’s changed. I wouldn’t say he hates training. I think he understands the importance of it now.”

Really? The guy who said “When I have workouts, especially in the morning, you ruin my whole day” on Drive to Survive, steam practically pouring from his ears at the thought of physical exertion?

“I’ll be honest, I didn’t watch the Netflix show,” says Italiano. “And it’s probably a good thing I didn’t watch it! Because it kind of gave me a bit of an open mind.

“I liaised with his previous coach, Noel, a lot, probably from Abu Dhabi onwards. He would send me the training he’d be doing with Yuki, and what Yuki would be eating. And he even sent me his testing results, so I could see where Yuki’s baseline was. So I didn’t come in blind.

Comments made on Drive To Survive have stuck to Tsunoda, but Italiano says he's changed his attitudes towards fitness work

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“I knew a lot about him. I knew where his weaknesses were. So that kind of gave me an idea of how I could programme for Dubai. But I think I kind of just went in there and just stepped back a little bit, just to see how he trains, what motivated him, how he responded to certain cues that I gave – like, does he respond to my energy, does he not?

“But no, I wouldn’t say he hates training. He trains hard. And since I’ve been on board, it’s been, what, six or seven months... I’ve been training him very, very hard. And he’s never complained. He’s never asked why we need to do this and that. He’s never asked for a day off when I’ve not prescribed it. He’s never said, ‘Oh, can I do this tomorrow?’ He just does it.”

Myth busted, then?

“No, I still don’t like it,” says Tsunoda, making his PR assistant chuckle. But he’s not quite joking.

"We’ve chosen the right direction because so far this year I’ve never felt tired during a race, which was the case before, especially the first year. It was one of my limitations" Yuki Tsunoda

“I still don’t like the equipment, I don’t like the smell in the gym. But it’s just a different mindset. I know how important it is. And I know that if I don’t do it, if I don’t train, if I don’t put a lot of effort into training, I’m going to struggle in the race. So I’m doing it for the performance at the track.

“Yeah, first year [I didn’t train as hard]. But obviously, as soon as I started to recognise how weak I actually am, more towards the second half of the season, that’s when I spoke with Noel and said, ‘We need to fix this’, and from there we kind of changed my approach, that mindset.

“As soon as we started to improve our training programme everything became easier and that’s why the second year I was able to improve. Which also kind of reconfirmed to me how important training is. So, it’s not because of Michael I train more. We started already with Noel. Without him, I wouldn’t have achieved what I did in the past two years. But now I’d say the amount of training Michael is giving me is probably more.

“I think we’ve chosen the right direction because so far this year I’ve never felt tired during a race, which was the case before, especially the first year. It was one of my limitations, we spoke with Noel about it, we tried to improve our training programme and last year I became better and better in terms of physical fitness. I wasn’t struggling that much in the races.

“But now, third year, we also took a different approach, for example, with the training camp to begin the season. I feel how much progress I’ve made.”

While admitting he still doesn't enjoy training, Tsunoda has methodically worked to eradicate his limitations and build up more endurance

Photo by: Erik Junius

Training the brain

It’s clear even to an untrained eye that Tsunoda 
has changed. He looks much more the athlete than he did before.

“I’m definitely in good shape now, I would say the best shape ever in my motorsport career… And it’s not just training,” smiles Tsunoda, flourishing his drink bottle. “He’s pushing me to drink this green shit. It doesn’t taste nice, but apparently it’s good for my brain. At least he [Italiano] says so. I thought my brain was alright. But he wants to make it better, so I drink it.”

It hasn’t been easy to judge Tsunoda this year, not only because AlphaTauri’s competitiveness has dropped significantly, but also because the main benchmark by which his performance was always measured, Pierre Gasly, is no longer with the team. Still, he outperformed highly rated rookie Nyck de Vries to such an extent that Red Bull bosses decided to sack de Vries. And even though Tsunoda himself admitted he was getting a little bit nervous when Italiano’s previous client joined him at AlphaTauri, it was the Japanese who brought the team another point at Spa.

“It’s very different,” says Michael of his experiences working with Ricciardo and Tsunoda. “Daniel was like a senior driver. He was quite established. He’d already built pretty strong professional qualities over the years. So it was just more about maintaining that and finding little ways to improve, whereas Yuki is a younger guy, trying to make his mark.

“And, you know, it’s the third year, you could probably arguably say that your third and fourth year in Formula 1 is your make-or-break period. If you’re not showing signs of improvement or some really good positive signs, the next younger person is probably going to come in, right?”

Tsunoda isn’t yet a complete driver and he’s the first to admit he still has a lot to learn. Brutally honest with the media, he’s gone as far as to say his feedback wasn’t as good as de Vries’ even after the Dutchman was sacked, and that Ricciardo’s ability to communicate with the team is “at a different level”. He knows he needs to improve in many areas, including temper.

“I think the radio [composure] is a sign of maturity,” notes Italiano. “As you get older you mature quite naturally. And I think the whole yelling situation, the last couple of years, is probably Yuki not controlling his emotions well enough. He understands that. It’s getting better – he had a penalty in Barcelona [for pushing Zhou Guanyu off the track], and he didn’t agree with it. But he didn’t yell on the radio, he responded quite calmly and respectfully to his engineer.

Tsunoda is still maturing as a driver, but his progress has earned another contract extension at AlphaTauri

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

“It’s something he definitely wants to get better at, because he’s aware when he’s calm in the car he drives very well and when he lets his emotions take over he makes mistakes. So it’s a bit of a non-negotiable to try and help him control his emotions a bit more.

“But I think that’s natural, right? He’s 22. I remember when I was 22 I had no control over my emotions. Unfortunately, being in Formula 1, you don’t have time. You’re in the spotlight, you need to adapt quicker. He’s putting in the hard work and I think, by the end of the year, the yelling will be gone.”

Tsunoda’s natural speed, which accounted for his rapid ascent of the European junior racing ladder, is still his greatest asset. Without it he wouldn’t have lasted three years in F1. And while he’s still hardly immune to mistakes, Tsunoda remained the only driver to have scored points for AlphaTauri this year until Liam Lawson's ninth place in Singapore.

It took him a while to realise that he couldn’t rely on talent alone to succeed in F1. But perhaps more importantly, just as he now understands how important his physical form is, Tsunoda also knows that it’s better to keep a cool head and shoot zombies right away as they come, rather than waste time shouting at them.

Tsunoda is becoming accustomed to the intense scrutiny that comes with being a Formula 1 driver even at the age of 22

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool