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Meet the man who, in a couple of months' time (we hope...), will become the first driver born in the 21st century to race in Formula 1. He's extremely fast, he has excellent racecraft, he's had a meteoric Formula 2 career under the patronage of Red Bull and Honda, and he has great intelligence that has impressed everyone he's worked with.
And Yuki Tsunoda is also an absolutely terrific lad. In these strange times, Autosport's chance to interview him comes via the courtesy of his new F1 team AlphaTauri's Zoom link, beamed from a truck at Yas Marina straight into a Middlesex living room. As Tsunoda approaches the screen, he bows politely, exchanges pleasantries, and gets reminded by AlphaTauri's media lady that he's OK to take off his face mask - the risk of infection over computers separated by 3500 miles is, after all, on the slim side.
At the time of the interview, Tsunoda is about to embark upon the post-season Abu Dhabi test in preparation for his maiden F1 season, yet only a couple of weeks earlier there had been a big question mark over whether he could even secure the top five Formula 2 championship position he would require to gain the necessary superlicence following an explosive rookie campaign with the Carlin team.
