Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner has explained that Yuki Tsunoda is trying to avoid one key error that hurt his predecessors in the Formula 1 giant’s second seat.
The Japanese driver’s gut-wrenching run continued in Canada, his weekend compromised early on after receiving a 10-place grid penalty for overtaking Oscar Piastri’s McLaren under red flag conditions in FP3.
Starting at the back, Tsunoda managed to put up a good fight in the RB21, moving up to 12th, a respectable result given the circumstances.
Speaking after the race, Horner said that Tsunoda opted to change the set-up of his car, and choose something different to that of Verstappen, a choice that he believes worked well.
“I think to try and avoid what other drivers have gone down the road of trying to adopt Max’s set-up is to go his own route and work on what suits his style and his needs, and I think they’ve made some progress on that this weekend.”
Horner also confirmed that Tsunoda had been able to run with the same spec RB21 that he initially was given, along with Verstappen, for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, which was reverted back after his huge qualifying shunt at the Imola circuit.
“It’s the same spec as he had in Imola, and now back to where he’s with Max, he said. “So hopefully he’ll take some real positives out of the weekend.”
Tsunoda ‘did a decent job’ under the circumstances at Imola
Red Bull is notorious for its high standards, a reason for the pressure that has been heaped upon Tsunoda in recent races.
It was another disappointing weekend on paper, but under the circumstances of his penalty and with overtaking being at a premium at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, it was a respectable result, something Horner affirmed.
“I thought he actually did a decent job,” he said. “You can see how hard overtaking is here. So actually I thought Yuki should have taken some confidence out of it.
“If he’d have started in his normal grid position, if he’d qualified, he would have scored points today.”
“It’s the same spec as he had in Imola, and now back to where he’s with Max. So hopefully he’ll take some real positives out of the weekend.”
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