Four-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel has praised one F1 driver for his improvement since the start of 2023.
Vettel, who won 53 Grands Prix during his career, has taken on a watching brief since leaving Aston Martin and retiring at the end of 2022.
And speaking during an appearance on The Fast and the Curious podcast, Vettel offered his verdict on the current generation of young drivers.
Of the drivers in their early-to-mid 20s yet to win a championship, Charles Leclerc has been the most successful.
The Ferrari star has bagged five race victories and amassed 23 pole positions in addition to 32 podiums.
George Russell is also a race-winner, having taken the chequered flag in Brazil in his first season with Mercedes.
Russell has finished on the podium 11 times, fewer than compatriot Lando Norris (14), but the McLaren driver is still waiting to stand on the top step.
In fact, Norris has now surpassed Nick Heidfeld to hold the record for most podiums without a victory in the sport’s history.
Sebastian Vettel loves what he’s seeing from Yuki Tsunoda
In addition to the aforementioned front-running trio, RB’s Yuki Tsunoda has caught Vettel’s eye.
The Japanese driver is now embarking on his fourth season in the sport after joining 2021 when the team was known as AlphaTauri.
Tsunoda lost out to more experienced teammate Pierre Gasly in his first two years in the sport.
But last year, he began to assert himself amid instability on the other side of the garage.
Tsunoda comfortably beat rookie driver Nyck de Vries, who was subsequently dropped midway through the season.
He then faced Daniel Ricciardo and Liam Lawson, with the latter stepping in for five races when the former broke his hand.
Tsunoda is currently dominating Ricciardo at the start of their first full year together as teammates, leading their qualifying head-to-head 3-0 and out-scoring him 6-0 in the standings too.
Vettel has applauded the 23-year-old for the steps he has taken to improve his driving.
He said: “Yuki also had a strong tendency and growth in the last one and a half years, which is great to see.”
Tsunoda rakes in the plaudits for out-classing Daniel Ricciardo
Vettel certainly isn’t the only one to laud Tsunoda after his strong start to the 2024 campaign.
Like his fellow world champion, Damon Hill feels that he’s come on ‘leaps and bounds’ in recent times.
The notoriously ruthless Red Bull director Helmut Marko has publicly commended his ‘faultless’ displays.
Tsunoda said recently he hasn’t fully ‘fallen in love’ with F1 yet, but he appears to be in the best spell of his career at the moment.
His contract is up at the end of the current season, and you wonder whether rival teams might just begin to make enquiries about taking him on.
IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe has even argued that he deserves to be in contention for a Red Bull seat.
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