‘It just needs more time’ – Tsunoda explains ‘not easy’ process of adapting to Red Bull’s RB21

Yuki Tsunoda has revealed where he is currently at in terms of adapting to the Red Bull RB21, with the Japanese driver admitting that the process “needs more time” despite being happy with the progress he has made so far.

Tsunoda made the step up to the Milton Keynes-based outfit at Round 3 in Japan, the team having opted to move him from Racing Bulls while sending Liam Lawson – who had initially earned promotion but struggled in the two opening rounds – back to the sister outfit in Tsunoda’s place.

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Since then the 24-year-old has scored his debut points for the squad with a P9 result in Bahrain, though faced a disappointing end to his weekend last time out in Saudi Arabia after retiring following a first-lap collision with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly.

Asked ahead of the upcoming Miami Grand Prix about how confident he is now feeling in the car, Tsunoda cited Qualifying as an area for improvement as he responded: “It just needs more time, I guess, to get used to it fully. 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.”

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Going into further detail, Tsunoda explained the differences between driving the RB21 versus his previous car, the VCARB 02, a challenger that he was more accustomed to after racing for the Racing Bulls team across four full seasons.

“I’ll say it’s not complicated [to drive the Red Bull] in the sense of trying to drive around, but it’s still not easy, for sure,” the Japanese racer said. “In VCARB the car was a bit more lenient and forgiving with any directions. The Red Bull has a sharper, narrower window where it performs.

“It’s not easier than VCARB, but better than I thought initially when I jump into Red Bull. This is the first time after joining Formula 1 [that I’m in a different car]. For four years I drove the same car and knew how to set it up and where the limit was.

“Now, I just naturally didn’t have to think about it before, but now, in terms of set-ups… The set-up I tried a couple of time in Suzuka that I thought would be good, just didn’t work out – even when in the car, the balance felt good, the lap time didn’t reflect it.

“So that needs to come from experience, and sometimes you just have to accept the difficulties of the car. Like, if it feels like a lot of understeer or oversteer, but lap time is good, probably stick to that direction. It’s a different approach. I’m learning as much as possible.

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“The team is helping a lot with those directions. I just have to get used to it. But the limit, I just still don’t know yet exactly. Like in Q3 in Saudi, I pushed a bit more and had a massive snap, which I didn’t expect. It will get there. I just try to keep my head down and slowly build up.

“Even with the general environment [within the team], me and my engineer – he’s Scottish, so a mix of Scottish English and my Japanese English – it’s a bit interesting. Those things just need more time to blend in.”

With Red Bull’s Helmut Marko recently suggesting that Tsunoda has further progress to make when it comes to performing in Q3 of Qualifying, the driver admitted that he “definitely” agreed with this.

“To be completely honest, the last few races, I wasn’t able to put it all together in Q3,” Tsunoda reflected. “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.

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“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.”

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