Yuki Tsunoda finished the F1 US GP in P7, bringing home 6 points for Red Bull Racing.
After starting P13, Tsunoda had a strong start, which helped him on his charge into the points. Along with finishing P7 in the Sprint race, the US GP was one of the strongest weekends for Yuki Tsunoda since moving to the Red Bull team.
Increased confidence
It is no secret that the Japanese driver has been struggling to get to grips with the Red Bull. Since joining the team, he has struggled to score points, and his performance has not matched that of his teammates, notably Max Verstappen. Whilst it was not expected for him to be challenging Verstappen, Tsunoda was expected to have achieved better results.
However, as time has gone on, he appears to be more confident in the car. Speaking to the media after the US GP, he admitted that he is more confident racing around the Circuit Of The Americas.
“The start was good once again, especially the first few laps. I had a really good pace, able to gain some positions, which was good. After that, the pace was ok.
“In this track, I don’t know why, I have extra confidence in how to attack. I have a good feeling from yesterday. The next day I was on a different side of the lane to start, but was able to replicate similar as what I did yesterday.”
Difficulties in the race
It wasn’t smooth sailing for Tsunoda during the US GP. With the hard compound tyres not performing well, the drivers had to adapt their strategy and focus on tyre saving. He also had a close call with Ollie Bearman. This was on top of Tsunoda still trying to find the limits of the RB21, and fighting the bumpiness of COTA.
“It was tricky. I think it was over-management in the second stint, which resulted in the last 5-10 laps, I was able to improve lap by lap. That’s the thing, currently it’s hard to feel the limit. Still, I find the limit, how much I can push it this far in the long run, which I’m learning at.
“But also in general, probably something that we, especially my side of the car, that I was struggling with, especially in this long run, was the bumpiness of the track.”
The gap to Verstappen
Yuki Tsunoda still has a long way to go if he wishes to close the gap to Max Verstappen in terms of performance. Tsunoda feels that when on the harder compounds, he can replicate Verstappen’s lap times. However, when he switches to softer tyres, this is where the difference shows. This could explain his struggles in qualifying sessions.
“The short run is still a main limitation for sure. That’s something I have to focus on. Just something that extra grip is missing, that I should feel when I switch to soft.
“You start FP1, with the hard, I was pretty much the same lap time as Max. All the long run and short runs. And suddenly on the soft, 8 tenths difference, 7 tenths. So I’m not sure what’s going on with that grip on the soft, but it’s something that definitely we are looking at.”
