Yuki Tsunoda has expressed his satisfaction after securing ninth place in his opening Grand Prix weekend for Alpha Tauri but was disappointed with a mistake he made on the opening lap.

Tsunoda had been quick all weekend and had briefly gone second fastest in the first part of qualifying, had a poor start to the Grand Prix, losing two places on the opening lap alone; however, he fought back with some sensational overtakes in the second half of the race to finish ninth and bring home Alpha Tauri's only points of the weekend.

“I’m glad to get points; I lost quite a lot of positions on the first lap. That was my big mistake, and I had to recover from there. I’m happy 50 per cent, but still 50 per cent, it was my big mistake. It was possible to go more forward for positions, so first points feel ok, but I think there was a lot of space to improve this race in Imola.”

“The pace was good, the last three laps, I was behind Stroll, and I got dirty air and struggled to adapt to that dirty air and made quite a lot of mistakes. So last lap, first corner, there was still quite a big gap, but I sent it. Glad that I passed him and happy for the first point.”

Tsunoda briefly went into wheel to wheel combat with Alpine's Fernando Alonso during the first half of the race, with Tsunoda producing a scintillating manoeuvre to overtake the Spaniard.

“It was a bit emotional when I passed Fernando. The last time I saw him, 12 or 13 years ago, when I was 7 or 8 years old, so, into Turn 1, I just trusted Fernando’s skills and just launched it — you know, like a rookie. I felt a bit sorry about it, but I just launched it from pretty far away, so there were a few emotional things. Of course, it’s not the same car, but I was happy for that.”