Tsunoda: I did Uber Eats daily for breakfast, lunch, dinner

The 21-year-old, heading into this second F1 season, jokingly told reporters ahead of Bahrain F1 Testing this week that Tost was in much better shape than him: "Because you guys don't know how fit Franz is. He's running like 10km from 5:30 am which I've never done in my life.

"Also last year especially the beginning or the first half of the season I was taking pretty much every day Uber Eats breakfast, lunch, dinner, and one hand on the game control and one hand just food," revealed Yuki.

Honda-backed Japanese driver Tsunoda made a strong start to his rookie campaign last year, scoring points on his debut in Bahrain.

But he endured a dip in form before rebounding with a career-best fourth-placed finish in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Tsunoda, who last year relocated to Italy from England to be closer to the team's Faenza base, said he had trained harder over the offseason and could feel the difference: "If a 60-year-old man can do it, I think I should do, especially I'm an athlete,"

Tost explained that Tsunoda, like any other rookie, had simply been caught out by the physical demands of F1: "Every driver feels then he is not fit enough. Of course, he had to do a lot of training during last year already and during the winter months.

"I think he caught up, I got a year older than him, that means now he is for sure in front of me," conceded Tost.

Tsunoda will be 'back at work' for a full day on Friday having sat out Thursday's first day of testing in Bahrain, as teammate Pierre Gasly did duty in the AlphaTauri AT03.