Yuki Tsunoda scored the first home-race point of his Formula 1 career on April 7, 2024, finishing 10th for RB at Suzuka. It also made him the first Japanese driver to score in the Japanese Grand Prix since Kamui Kobayashi took a podium and 15 points there in 2012.
Tsunoda’s result was only a single point on paper, but at Suzuka it carried a bit more weight than that. The official FIA classification shows him 10th at the flag, one lap down on winner Max Verstappen, with the final championship point safely secured for RB.
What made it feel earned rather than inherited was the way the race unfolded. Tsunoda started in the top 10, lost ground early, then recovered through strategy and tyre use to climb back into the points.
It was not a lucky late gift or a piece of statistical housekeeping. It was Tsunoda delivering something tangible in front of his own crowd at Suzuka, and finally giving Japan a home points-scorer again 12 years after Kobayashi. Sometimes 10th place does a perfectly respectable impression of a headline.
