Alpha Tauri rookie Yuki Tsunoda has apologised on social media platform Twitter after suggesting that his car might be different to teammate's Pierre Gasly in his post-qualifying comments to the media.

The 20-year-old Japanese rookie who started his Formula 1 career with points after finishing ninth in Bahrain was visibly frustrated with his performances throughout yesterday's sessions after being told to calm down by his engineer in FP3 before launching a tirade over team radio after only qualifying 16th fastest for today's Spanish Grand Prix with Tsunoda shouting over the team radio “I can’t ******* believe this car!”

Tsunoda then suggested that his car was not the same as Gasly's after the Alpha Tauri team leader out qualified Tsunoda after qualifying 12th quickest behind Aston Martin's Lance Stroll on what was Alpha Tauri's worst qualifying since last year's Turkish Grand Prix. 

“It’s always different feedback compared to my teammate, even when we try the opposite. I have a little bit question mark if it is the same car - of course, it’s the same car, but just the character of the car is just too different. Maybe, of course, it’s a different driving style. But yeah, I don’t know, I don’t understand what happened, why I’m struggling this much.”

However, later in the evening, Tsunoda backtracked on his comments and apologised to the team on social media platform Twitter, explaining that the reason for his outburst was his frustration over his poor performance in qualifying. 

"I wanted to apologize for my comments today. I didn’t mean to criticize the team who have done a great job all weekend. I was just frustrated with my performance. Full send tomorrow."

Tsunoda currently resides in 13th in the driver's championship with two points to his name and is the best-placed rookie in the driver's standings.