Yuki Tsunoda has declared the Las Vegas Grand Prix was among his best weekends with Red Bull in Formula 1, despite his point-less run extending to three races.
Starting from the pit lane having been eliminated in Q1 due to incorrect tyre pressure, Tsunoda was classified in 12th once the two McLaren drivers were excluded.
Despite missing out on the points places once again, Tsunoda remained adamant that the result didn’t reflect the pace he possessed at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit.
Tsunoda highlighted how the early Virtual Safety Car had a lasting impact on his race, leading him to rue that luck has not been on his side since his Red Bull move.
“The [Virtual] Safety Car [was called] right after I pitted. So that’s not ideal at all, and that’s it really,” Tsunoda told media including Motorsport Week
“I stayed in the dirty air afterwards because people came into the pits. It feels like everything is so far going against me.”
Tsunoda insists Las Vegas result masked improved pace
Tsunoda believes the end result concealed the improvement he made over the weekend, citing that he was on team-mate Max Verstappen’s pace through practice.
“Multiple times – FP1, FP2, FP3 – in multiple laps, I was ahead of Max in performance runs,” he divulged.
“I think [that’s] something that I didn’t have and we didn’t see probably for a long time.”
However, Tsunoda has recognised that Verstappen, who kept his title dream alive with a victory, tends to go into another gear when the competitive action begins.
“Obviously one of his strengths is he’ll bring the car on his level, to another level in qualifying, which is his strength,” he continued.
“But also, I had confidence as well into qualifying [that] I can perform better than the other race weekends, and these things happen.
“I think the pace I’ve shown until qualifying was good and qualifying was just completely not in my control and a lost opportunity. It’s tough.
“At least the pace itself, I guess, is going the right direction but it’s frustrating that I know I couldn’t really show it in the result.”
Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies acknowledged the team cost Tsunoda, with an aggressive strategy not enough to undo the damage that was done in qualifying.
“Obviously, with Yuki we lost the points yesterday. We know that,” he said. “And hence we tried to take a bit more risk and to be different compared to the field.
“We knew that otherwise we would just be stuck in traffic. So we tried to pit him very early to give him some free air.”
READ MORE – Red Bull apologises to Yuki Tsunoda for ‘big mistake’ that culminated in Las Vegas Q1 exit
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