Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda got off to a steady start to their weekend at the 2025 F1 Las Vegas GP. As they worked to adapt to the cold, low-grip conditions, both drivers acknowledged the team still has things to perfect ahead of FP3 and Qualifying. For Tsunoda, the Japanese driver delivered a strong performance in FP1, going 3rd fastest, with Verstappen close behind in 4th. However, for many teams and drivers, the red flags in FP2 disrupted their run plans. By the end of the session, Verstappen and Tsunoda finished 9th and 15th respectively.
After Thursday’s practice sessions, both Red Bull drivers spoke to F1TV, reflecting on their pace and the first day of track time at the 2025 F1 Las Vegas GP.
A decent Friday for Tsunoda
After a strong FP1 outing, Tsunoda ended the first day in Vegas feeling generally confident. While he’d noted that the car felt different compared to FP1, he believes that the team has made progress in the right direction and still showed encouraging pace.
“Overall, good confidence, how I ended up today, first day in Vegas. Yeah, shame about the FP2 that I had a bit of issues, but I think the pace is there. Something that we faced, I was a little bit different to what I felt in FP1, but it’s part of the learning and we still recovered, not fully, but in the right direction in the session and we learned something, but still even that, the pace was ok.
“I think it was good also testing across the cars as well. So yeah, just put it all together tomorrow,” said Tsunoda.
More to unlock
The Japanese driver credited his speed and promising pace in FP1 to the car setup. Especially on a low-grip track, he felt encouraged by his pace. However, he admitted there’s still more to unlock, noting that Ferrari and the other front-running teams look very competitive.
Tsunoda said: “Yeah, I would say so. I started to learn about this car and especially like this kind of low grip track, you want to have a good confidence in the car because you’re consistently controlling the car. It’s good that it shows at least a little bit that my confidence is there and I’m able to control pretty well in this car. So obviously something to nail slightly more, but yeah, it’s good.
“Let’s see. It wasn’t very quick, I guess, still in FP2. I think still Ferrari is pretty quick. Yeah, I think those four teams are very, very tight. So yeah, I think we still have to find a little bit more speed from the car. But yeah, I hope and I’m sure we will find something overnight from the car setup that we’re comparing. And yeah, let’s see how it goes tomorrow.”
An “ok” day for Verstappen after FP2 interruptions
After a disrupted day, the reigning World Champion claimed he’d an “ok” day and noted how it’s made it tricky to get a clear read on the RB21’s potential. Echoing similar thoughts to Tsunoda, he added that Red Bull still needs to find more improvement ahead of qualifying and the race.
“It’s been ok. I mean, just a bit difficult to understand what to do with these interruptions. I think we still need to improve a little bit to find a bit more grip out there. Also, the track, of course, is improving quite a bit every session. So, yeah, we’ll try to just focus on that, seeing how we can operate the tyres for qualifying and the race.”
Despite their form at low-downforce circuits this season, Verstappen stressed that speed is never guaranteed. When asked whether he felt as comfortable in the car as he has at other low-downforce circuits this season, the Dutchman explained: “No, but it’s a lot colder here and the surface is very slippery. So, you cannot compare them to other tracks just because it’s low downforce. So, it’s not a given that you’re going quick here.”
