Yuki Tsunoda, who was brought in to replace Liam Lawson at Red Bull, failed to achieve his objective of scoring points at Suzuka. However, the Japanese driver has impressed Christian Horner, who is confident that Tsunoda’s performance will only improve as the season progresses.
Yuki Tsunoda kicked off the race weekend in Japan, where he made his Red Bull debut, on a high note. He finished in the top ten in both the first and third free practice sessions for the Japanese Grand Prix. However, the Japanese driver only managed to qualify in fifteenth place, although a grid penalty for Carlos Sainz Jr meant he ultimately started in fourteenth. A minor error in his final lap left him half a second behind teammate Max Verstappen, but his deficit was still less than Liam Lawson’s in each of his three qualifying sessions against Verstappen.
Horner is pleased with Tsunoda’s weekend and has identified exactly where things went wrong. “FP1 was very strong, FP3 was fine. In Q1 he was only a tenth off Max, but in Q2 he made a mistake. He was 15 kilometers per hour faster than usual in turn one, had a moment, and as a result, he was playing catch-up for the rest of the lap. And so he qualified in fourteenth,” he analyzes.
Tsunoda’s Overtaking Maneuvers
Tsunoda overtook Lawson in the opening round and, thanks to a smart strategic choice, also passed Pierre Gasly. In a race with only fifteen overtaking maneuvers, Tsunoda, after Jack Doohan, was the driver who gained the most positions. “I think he would have finished higher if he had qualified better,” Horner speculates. “He overtook, had an undercut on Pierre Gasly, and spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the rear wing of Fernando Alonso, in a race where I can’t remember seeing any overtaking,” he positively comments.
With no retirements in the race, the two overtaking maneuvers were not enough for a points finish, leaving Red Bull with the RB21 of their second driver still scoreless after three races in the Formula 1 season. Horner prefers to see the bigger picture. “Yuki has established himself in the team and provided very good feedback. I think that as he is finding his groove in the team, we will see his performance improve in the upcoming races,” he predicts.
