Has Honda found Japan's first F1 race winner?

Twenty Japanese drivers have made it to Formula 1. The country has traditionally shown an unwavering dedication to supporting its young talent, and every year manufacturers spend millions on this effort. But Japan's wait for a Formula 1 victory has been a long one.

Kamui Kobayashi, Satoru Nakajima, Takuma Sato and Aguri Suzuki have all delivered fastest laps, podiums, front-row starts and/or points in F1 or, in Kobayashi's case, all of the above. Kobayashi exited five years ago, but could Japan's quest for a new superstar talent finally be coming to an end?

It's been no secret that Honda has wanted to use its support of Toro Rosso and latterly Red Bull to get one of its drivers into an F1 seat.

While Naoki Yamamoto has impressed in recent years, winning the Super GT title in 2018 with Jenson Button (who said his team-mate was good enough for F1), it's unlikely that he will get anything more than practice outings owing to his age, as the reigning Super Formula champion is now 31.

In Formula 2, Nobuharu Matsushita is on course for a fourth consecutive season finishing outside of the top-five in the standings, despite having top machinery. Tadasuke Makino scored as many wins in F2 as Lando Norris last year (one!), but needs consistency to match his rapid pace, and he is now in Super Formula and out of the F1-support limelight.

It's a pool packed with drivers, but with none of them jumping out as future F1 winners. Until, just maybe, now. Step forward Yuki Tsunoda.

Before you consult the stats, Autosport has not gone mad. He's currently eighth in the FIA Formula 3 Championship, and that's probably not the kind of position that means F1 potential. But all the signs are there if you're willing to dig deep enough. And they became even more obvious after he took a sterling first series win in the wet at Monza last weekend.

First of all, Tsunoda is with Jenzer Motorsport. It's a charming team based in the mountains of Switzerland, but it lacks the budget to be constantly chucking new parts and huge resource at its cars, even if it has the benefit of being one of the few teams in F3 not to also run an F2 operation (alongside Hitech Grand Prix), therefore its focus is on its F3 and F4 operations.

Last year, David Beckmann had two top-10 finishes with the team in GP3, but a mid-season switch to Trident Racing earned him eight top-seven finishes, two poles and two wins in the second half of the season. Juan Manuel Correa's two podiums in F2 this year - after finishing 12th in GP3 with Jenzer, with a best result of fourth - demonstrates that it's not a top outfit.

It goes a long way towards making up for this with hard graft. While Jenzer doesn't offer the plug-in-and-play performance of the likes of Prema Racing and ART Grand Prix, it does offer drivers a chance to learn and develop. And that's exactly what Tsunoda has done.

"Honestly, I was a little bit worried before the beginning of the season, because last year Jenzer Motorsport did not do very good results," says Tsunoda. "I worry, but it's good to improve my skills and [learn] how to improve the car.

"Obviously winning is an important thing, but learning a lot is more important for your future. I learned a lot of things from Jenzer, and next year I'm confident of making good results."

Tsunoda is the reigning Japanese F4 champion, supported by the Honda Dream Project, without which he would not have the funding to compete outside of Japan.

For 2019, after just two full seasons of car racing, he packed his bags and moved from the Kanagawa Prefecture near Tokyo and now lives in the quiet, rolling hills of Switzerland. It might not be the most lively place, but it has its benefits.

Honda has really stepped up and paid attention to its youngster, seemingly deciding Tsunoda is ready for F2 and he'll almost certainly be with a strong team next year

"This is my first time in Europe, it's completely different," he says. "I enjoy Switzerland because there's a lot of nature. I lived in a city in Japan, in Kanagawa. Switzerland is the opposite, but I love living in nature and there's famous mountains. We are always cycling, I don't get bored."

It's a culture shock for Tsunoda. The path is well-trodden in recent years - Japanese drivers learning their home circuits, dominating, and then being swallowed up by the complicated European junior single-seater ladder and the complexities that come with it.

Honda is hoping Tsunoda bucks that trend. In F2 and F3, it's always the tyres that provide the biggest learning curve. Degrading tyres aren't - rightly - a thing in Japanese junior single-seaters. But more than that, feedback with engineers is vital.

F2 and F3 get one practice session, one qualifying and then it's two races - less than two hours of track time for a driver to learn a live circuit before the racing starts. No tyre temperature data, just their feeling in the car. And then a driver must compute everything they've learned and convey it back to the engineers. It's a difficult task for a driver who barely knew any English before the start of the season.

"He has a fitness coach who is English [and has lived in Switzerland for three years, and formerly worked with Romain Grosjean], so they are working on this together, and there have been no mistakes from this side," says team boss Andreas Jenzer. The 'no mistakes' relates to Tsunoda's feedback and suggestions.

"It's improving a lot. He thinks a lot before he talks. Maybe at the start of the year, he was a little bit emotional in the car, but he is really under control now. I think he doesn't talk before he knows. He knows before he talks."

It's incredible speaking to Tsunoda now, compared to the first round of the season, how well he can articulate his thoughts. The way he has learned English and adapted to his new surroundings has been nothing short of remarkable in such a short period. An additional programme of EuroFormula Open using the old F3 car is no doubt helping to add to his knowledge of the tracks and improve his English feedback.

The season hasn't always been perfect. He was way too aggressive on the tyres at the start of the year, and he can be a bit too keen to hold a position when sometimes letting someone go and saving the tyre means the race can come back to you.

And then there's the "emotional" element that Jenzer mentions, demonstrated by an incredible outburst last week where he effectively told his engineer - advising on brake balance - to shut up and leave him to it. Very Kimi Raikkonen.

But gradually he and Jenzer have improved to the point where they have scored podiums at the past two rounds, Spa and Monza, including a third and a first in Italy. Does it sound easy to score podiums on your first time seeing the likes of Ascari and Parabolica? Thought not.

His drive to victory in the wet at Monza was special. He's not particularly experienced in mixed or wet conditions, but he said he had "good feeling in the car" and was able to push and pass Jake Hughes, a veteran at this level driving for the resourceful HWA outfit.

The conditions certainly helped Tsunoda - the first half of the season was fraught with understeer, replaced by too much oversteer in recent rounds, so the weather helped to eradicate his balance issues.

Eighth in the standings is a sticking point, but Tsunoda's ability to bounce back through a weekend has been magnificent. Take Paul Ricard: he made an error in qualifying and was 27th on the grid, but raced through the field to seventh. Bearing in mind that F3 doesn't have pitstops, it was an incredible drive.

Honda has really stepped up and paid attention to its youngster, seemingly deciding that Tsunoda is ready for F2, so he'll almost certainly be with a strong team next year. He'll have a year's learning under his belt and be a much more rounded driver.

Nirei Fukuzumi was the last driver to make the step from GP3/F3 to Formula 2 and went from third in the championship with dominant team ART Grand Prix in 2017 to nowhere with Arden in F2 one year later.

It was heartbreaking to see someone as likeable as Fukuzumi falter - hopefully, he can pick himself back up after returning to Japan for 2019 - but maybe going from a worse-off team lower down will prepare Tsunoda better for his F2 career. Effectively, the opposite of what Fukuzumi did.

In Makino's case he was chucked in at too high a level after two years of car racing, straight into F2 where he finished 13th despite winning, coincidentally, at Monza. Perhaps Honda has learned from the pitfalls of that 'in at the deep end' approach.

Honda's F1 managing director Masashi Yamamoto has certainly noticed Tsunoda's performances. He and Helmut Marko were on hand to congratulate Tsunoda after the Monza win. Yamamoto has high hopes, saying that his young hotshot has "exceeded expectations" so far.

When asked if Tsunoda had the makings of a serious F1 prospect, Yamamoto tells Autosport: "We now see his potential from some races. But we need to see how he can improve in further races.

"Also if he has an opportunity in future, we want to see how he can fight in higher categories against tougher competitors. We'll give him all the possible support as Honda, together with Red Bull."

Tsunoda knows how difficult an F1 jump will be, and how difficult in these cut-throat days it will be to keep his seat

A lot has changed in a year in Tsunoda's world, and there's no doubt that his mind is set on an F1 career. The fact that he is a Red Bull junior as well as part of the Honda Dream Project means he's been exposed to new standards he had no idea of before.

"It's really good to be with Red Bull and Honda, and also they are together in Formula 1," says Tsunoda. "So sometimes I can go to the F1 pit and [hear] how the drivers are speaking on the radio, or I can see also the data from F1, how they drive. I learn a lot and it's a big year. Last year I was only in Japan and all I saw was mine and my team-mates' data. Now I learn how they drive. It's a good thing."

Tsunoda is ever smiling in the paddock, but he's fierce out on the track - and other drivers have noticed. He drives with a relentlessness that shows he knows this is his big chance at his ultimate goal, which he'll learn to temper in time as it can get him in trouble.

But the key attributes are there to make him a complete driver. He's quick, intelligent, fiercely motivated, likeable and able to drive a team forwards despite scoring average results.

"He's fantastic to work with," says Jenzer. "Obviously his English had to improve a lot at the start, but I think he feels very well in the team, living in Switzerland - it's quite a quiet country and there is not too much partying...

"It's a completely different culture, but he is doing well. He has big expectations, but it's better that a driver is pushing and pushing; for us that's fantastic."

They are indeed big expectations. Tsunoda knows how difficult an F1 jump will be, and how difficult in these cut-throat days it will be to keep his seat. But we know Honda - which deserves credit for how much it puts into Japanese drivers - will back him to the hilt as long as he keeps scoring the results.

Tsunoda is all about one goal, to persuade everyone he should be in F1.

"I know how difficult it is to be an F1 driver," he says. "My target is to be a Formula 1 driver. When I was doing karting there was no big target, just to do step-by-step improvements.

"Last year when I won the F4 Championship I got the target to be a Formula 1 driver and a world champion in Formula 1. Now I'm preparing to be world champion, learning a lot from the car, learning more about the driving and it's a good thing."

He's made one of the most impressive starts to a career in Europe by anyone from Japan in recent memory, and a strong season in F2 next year could make Tsunoda a very hot property for an F1 seat in the future.

In the meantime, he'll keep working on his driving and continue to believe that he has what it takes. It's that motivation and determination that will help him to have a long career in motorsport, F1 chance or not.