Yuki Tsunoda hailed RB’s turnaround as he secured his highest-ever starting position in Formula 1 with third place during a wet qualifying at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Tsunoda survived five stoppages throughout a chaotic morning in Brazil to set the third quickest time in Q3, while RB team-mate Liam Lawson completed the top five.
The Japanese driver’s exploits represented a stark contrast to his woes earlier in the weekend as he trailed home six points behind Lawson in the Sprint in 15th place.
However, overnight revisions to his VCARB 01 – which even included switching certain parts – inspired Tsunoda to have greater confidence in the car in wet conditions.
“Yeah, very happy, obviously,” Tsunoda told media including Motorsport Week.
“At the same time, it’s going to be a long race. It’s going to be today as well, so I have to refocus.
“But definitely, overall, the team did a fantastic job, especially good turnaround from yesterday.
“It just felt weird throughout the week so far, and we made a lot of changes to the car.
“I think it’s hard to compare between yesterday and today because of rain and dry, but I think the car got much better.”
RB aiming to close the gap to Haas
With RB 10 points behind sixth-placed Haas in the Constructors’ Championship, Tsunoda has set his sights on converting his starting berth into a seismic points haul.
Asked how high he was aiming in the race that will take place later on, Tsunoda replied: “Yeah, definitely high.
“Just to be clean as much as possible every lap. That’s the main target, like we saw in qualifying.
“I think both cars are in good positions, and especially we’re fighting for P6, so I think this is a good opportunity to re-overtake [Haas] again.”
Tsunoda needed morale-boosting result
Tsunoda has admitted that he was eager to attain a morale-boosting result amid a wretched recent run which has seen him end up scoreless in the last seven rounds.
His downturn has coincided with Lawson excelling since replacing Daniel Ricciardo mid-season as the two battle to push their claim to a possible Red Bull promotion.
“I think from yesterday especially, like these kind of things are very needed,” he added. “But also yesterday, I think we know what happened there throughout.
“But straight away from FP1 just didn’t have real grip, and made a lot of changes, the parts as well. It’s hard, like I said, to compare, but got much better.
“I think just needed smooth weekends, like probably from Austin, Mexico, didn’t have really any clean race week.
“Austin started really good. Mexico, my bad, in the qualifying, there was good opportunity there, there was good pace. But lost [the] opportunity for myself.
“So just needed like this very clean race week, and I think still always confidence there.”
Tsunoda had flashbacks to Mexico shunt
Tsunoda conceded that his qualifying shunt in Mexico last weekend was vivid in his mind when he endured a spin at Turn 4 on one of his earlier timed attempts in Q3.
“So yeah, I mean, some point in this qualifying, kind of flashback, you know, in Mexico things happens in qualifying, kind of similar things happen in Q2 or Q3.
“Everything looks very slow when I was like spinning, and like things go to the gravel that made me rejoin to the track. But yeah, so far it’s been definitely good.”
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