"He was rolling in pain, holding on to his eye": Yuki Tsunoda’s trainer reveals almost blinding the AlphaTauri F1 driver

Yuki Tsunoda's performance coach Michael Italiano recently revealed how he almost blinded the AlphaTauri driver during his first session in Bahrain.

Italiano worked with Daniel Ricciardo in the past and was called up by AlphaTauri after Ricciardo's exit from McLaren. He was paired up with Yuki Tsunoda for the 2023 season.

Making an appearance on the Pitstop Podcast, Michael Italiano revealed how he almost got sacked during his first outing with Tsunoda. Before heading out on the track in Bahrain, a mobility training session quickly took a turn from funny banter to a grave situation.

Italiano recalled that when the Japanese driver lobbed a golf ball in his shin. The coach grabbed the ball and threw it toward the driver but it went straight into his eye.

"So I grabbed the golf ball, and then as I was walking to get the spiky ball, I just threw the golf ball," he said on the Pitstop Podcast.

"I wasn't even looking, and I just thought, I'll just lob it and it'll probably get him in the shin or something. I've lobbed it and he's rolling on his back. And it has hit him straight in the eye. Like, right eye. And I even heard the pop, he hit it clean. Golf balls are hard and it was a fair, decent lob."

He continued:

"He was rolling in pain, holding on to his eye. I panicked, so I ran to get some ice, came back with some ice. And I was like, 'Dude, just put this on your face. I'm so sorry'. To be honest. I was waiting for him just to absolutely tear me apart. To his point, I think he was just in so much pain, he just didn't. I've never apologised so much in my life."

Fortunately, the trivial incident didn't inflict any serious injury to Tsunoda but the pain persisted for the next 10 days. The AlphaTauri driver drove brilliantly to finish 11th in the Bahrain GP. Italiano was relieved with the result as he had saved his job.

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Yuki Tsunoda wants to control his radio outbursts

While Yuki Tsunoda has stepped up this season, he believes there is plenty of room for improvement from his side. He admitted that his performances in the first three races were consistent, but he has lacked such form in recent races.

Yuki Tsunoda in the Hungarian GP

Another aspect that the Japanese driver deems to be improved is the radio conversations.

"There's a couple of limitations like on the radio, where I want to focus and improve. Sometimes I rush to overperform, to be into Q3, Q2, whatever and sometimes mistakes started to happen more consistently rather [as opposed to the] first couple of races." Yuki Tsunoda was quoted by RacingNews365.com.

The AlphaTauri driver is happy with the progress over the season and is looking forward to working with his new teammate Daniel Ricciardo.