A recent test in the Red Bull RB19 at Silverstone didn’t provide Yuki Tsunoda with enough insight to cure his problems with the team’s current Formula 1 challenger.
Tsunoda made his Red Bull debut at the start of the recent F1 triple header and made Q3 in the latter two legs in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
The Japanese driver was able to convert a 10th place grid slot in Bahrain into a ninth place finish and Helmut Marko has hailed Tsunoda’s efforts as a positive step over his brief predecessor Liam Lawson.
Still, Tsunoda is still seeking to fully understand the Red Bull RB21 and is missing vital tenths in Q3 to improve his results.
To help combat those issues, Red Bull sent Tsunoda to Silverstone ahead of the Miami Grand Prix in the all-dominant RB19 machine from 2023, but the weather compromised his efforts.
“Yeah, I experienced the classic British weather – started damp and we didn’t bring any wet tyres, just because we didn’t want to waste any mileage for the driver TPC test,” Tsunoda told select media including Motorsport Week on Thursday.
“So we waited quite a long time for it to dry up. Unfortunately, we got a bit of an issue at the end of the day as well.
“So in the end, we didn’t drive much, but still a cool experience.
“To be honest, it’s hard to feel the difference, right? It was completely different conditions and completely different corner characteristics compared to previous races that I’ve raced.
“Also, I didn’t want to give stupid feedback to make confusion, so I told them what I felt clearly, but otherwise, still a good test for me to get some mileage.”
Alas, the compromising conditions at Silverstone meant Tsunoda’s RB19 test “finished more towards the engineering side – what they wanted to try.”
The result was that Tsunoda didn’t find many answers to solve his deficiencies with the current Red Bull car.
Tsunoda ‘needs more time’ with Red Bull RB21
The lack of findings from his Silverstone test shouldn’t be seen as a disaster.
After all, Tsunoda has made a steady start to life at Red Bull, and immediately seems more comfortable and confident in his surroundings than Lawson managed across his two-round stint with the Milton Keynes-based outfit.
Arriving in Q3 and scoring points was a good foundation for Tsunoda to start with and he’s been consistently pragmatic in his approach.
There’s been no drama, no concern and no despondent rhetoric from Tsunoda when speaking to the media since joining Red Bull.
Tsunoda is aware he needs to carry on with the task, work hard and improve and with time he will become better suited.
“It just needs more time, I guess, to get used to it fully,” he said.
“I’m happy with the progress so far. The confidence is quite there, but just when you push 100% on the limit in qualifying, that’s where you kind of face it for the first time, right? Because you don’t push 100% until then.
“The starting point is always slightly below where I want to be or where I used to start with in FP1, so it takes a bit more time to build up on new tracks.
“In qualifying, most of the time so far I experience new behaviour from the car and I’m not always able to cope with it.
“I wouldn’t say the car is super difficult – it just needs more time to define where the limit is.”
Tsunoda picks ‘priority area to work on’
Marko, in his regular Speedweek column, said “When things get serious in qualifying, [Tsunoda] loses time to Max [Verstappen], but the normal margin is two or three tenths.”
Tsunoda agreed that this is where he needs to improve the most.
“To be completely honest, the last few races, I wasn’t able to put it all together in Q3,” he said.
“I built up more through Q1 and Q2, and Q3 is certainly more of a push. But if you push slightly more than the car can handle – even 2% more than what the car wants – it just reacts super differently to what I used to be used to.
“So far, I can’t really predict it yet. That will come with experience in the Red Bull.
“Hopefully it’ll naturally come. I definitely haven’t been able to extract the performance in Q3.
“It’s something I need to work on. If I can qualify higher, there’s a better chance to score points.
“You can be more flexible with the team on strategy. So yeah, definitely a priority area to work on.”
READ MORE – Helmut Marko indicates Yuki Tsunoda has desired level to retain Red Bull seat
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