Yuki Tsunoda recorded positive progress in closing the gap between himself and teammate Max Verstappen, despite a difficult F1 Hungarian GP weekend for the team.
Tsunoda finished in 17th in Sunday’s race, having been knocked out in Q1 of qualifying on Saturday. He picked up new power unit components ahead of the race, and so started from the pitlane, but he struggled to make up ground due to ongoing issues with his RB21.
Setback after setback for Red Bull at F1 Hungarian GP
Tsunoda’s power unit changes will have given Red Bull insights into the issues with its car going into the Dutch GP after the summer break. However, his pitlane start wasn’t the only thing hindering his race. Red Bull had been struggling for pace all weekend, and extra setbacks stopped Tsunoda from being able to climb up the grid.
“I also picked up the damage from mid to the end of the race, which was not in my control,” he said in the print media pen. “I lost a lot of pace with that.
“To be honest, the baseline pace was already really, really struggling as a team, and on top of it, having that move was not ideal at all. Yep, pretty much the race was done with that.”
When asked if Red Bull had figured out what was causing its pace problems, Tsunoda had no answers.
“If we knew that, probably I would have much better pace today, because there was an opportunity to change something, but I think we’re still not clear yet what’s the issue.
“But that’s why I’m going to go to the simulator tomorrow, I’m going to the factory and investigate further what was the cause, and hopefully we can find it, because in the Netherlands it’s going to be still a similar performance level, and we don’t want to have a similar race week as this.
“It’s just the grip. I don’t think the grip we have is the grip that we should normally get. And yeah, it’s just really struggling with that, even one lap on the long run.”
Tsunoda: “I can be proud” of closing gap to Verstappen at F1 Hungarian GP
While it may not seem like it judging by pure results, Tsunoda’s pace was much closer to Verstappen’s at the Hungarian GP than any other race since he stepped into the Red Bull seat from the Japanese GP. This is one positive he could take away from the Hungarian GP.
“It’s showing that I’m having progress,” he said. “After I introduced the package, I’m much closer to Max. If you see on the paper, in short runs especially, it’s quite clear that I’m closing the gap with Max.
“Yesterday was probably one of the closest gaps in the last four years, which I think the team was proud of, and I think I can be proud of that. So, [I’ll] just keep [doing] what I’m doing.”
While Tsunoda was not far off Verstappen’s pace during qualifying on Saturday, the session was unusually tight. In fact, with just 0.543s covering the top 10 in Q3, it was the closest qualifying session in F1 history.
Despite being just five tenths off his teammate’s pace, Tsunoda couldn’t make it out of Q1 – but when looking beyond the result on paper, the Japanese driver believes he has made positive progress.
“Obviously, as a team, we struggled this weekend. Even though I was five tenths behind, I lost in Q1, I couldn’t go to Q2, so, on paper, it doesn’t look good, but at the same time, I think what I’m doing so far is positive.”
Tsunoda: Grid is very tight following F1 Hungarian GP
The one-stop strategy proved to be successful when McLaren’s Lando Norris took victory at the F1 Hungarian GP, though many teams were wary of the risk. When asked if this might have been possible for Tsunoda’s race, he was unconvinced.
“With that amount of sliding I had, I’m not sure,” he said. “And anyway, I had damage, so I think the pace is going to be really slow.”
Red Bull has almost a month to make changes to its car before the upcoming race in the Netherlands. Tsunoda believes there’s a lot of work to do to put the team at the top of the grid once again.
“Obviously, there’s not much time to rest, because we must be surprised at the amount of pace we didn’t have in the last race for the first half of the season,” he said. “So, at the same time, yeah, the fields are very, very tight.
“And I think in terms of the package that Red Bull is bringing so far, it’s impressively good. You know, the amount of set they’ve done in the first half of the season, which is incredible. So, I hope we can continue with that.
“To be honest, what we struggled with here, I hope this is track-specific, rather than the car pace itself, but we have to investigate for sure.”
