Verstappen and Tsunoda are officially back in action at the F1 Dutch GP practice sessions following this season’s summer break.
A challenging first day of practice at Zandvoort saw home favourite Max Verstappen wrestling once again with the RB21, while his teammate Yuki Tsunoda found glimpses of pace within the car.
Verstappen struggles with the RB21
The final timesheets left Verstappen P6 in FP1 and P5 in FP2.
For a driver and team that have dominated in previous years, this is a harsh reality to return to after the summer break.
The four-time champion’s frustration was clear as he spoke about the car’s continuous issues.
“I mean, nothing special, really. Still struggling with the same things,” Verstappen said.
“We tried a lot of things with the car, but it just doesn’t really seem to change anything in terms of the underlying problems.”
When asked if the team will be able to make changes to the car for FP3 and qualifying tomorrow, he said, “I’m not going to expect a massive turnaround.”
“Plus, the layout of the track also probably doesn’t suit our problems that we have with the car.”
The middle sector seems to be a major problem area for the car, with Verstappen explaining, “That’s my main problem.”
“In the middle sector, there are a lot of long corners, so it’s not great.”
His first practice session concluded with him getting beached in the gravel at turn 1.
“I think it will be really hard to be in that top five,” he admitted, a major difference from his 3 wins at this track in 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Tsunoda’s day of mixed emotions
On the other side of the Red Bull garage, Tsunoda’s FP1 was compromised with a spin that brought out a yellow flag, leaving him down in P16.
However, Tsunoda finished FP2 in P7 at the F1 Dutch GP, just behind Hamilton and Verstappen.
“We started FP1 pretty well, to be honest,” Tsunoda said.
When talking about his spin into the gravel, he noted, “When you try to extract performance, chasing the performance, it can happen. It was not ideal, but at least I know the limit.”
In FP2, a few set-up changes made things feel worse.
“FP2, certainly I enjoyed it in terms of this unique track, but at the same time, yeah, it was not easy obviously, with the wind, as usual.”
“I just never felt grip and lap by lap, it’s getting slower and slower.”
Despite the issues, Tsunoda noted that he’s confident that the team can work overnight to improve them.
“It’s good that FP1, FP2, something got exaggerated, and we know clearly what we have to improve.”
