How Mekies’ arrival at Red Bull could revitalize underachieving Tsunoda

07:32, 22 Jul

Updated: 11:11, 22 Jul

byTobia Elia

The arrival of a familiar face like Laurent Mekies could benefit Yuki Tsunoda in this second half of the season, even though the Japanese driver, as reported by GPBlog, is set to leave Red Bull at the end of the year.

Joining Max Verstappen with great fanfare and the goal of redeeming Liam Lawson’s disastrous start to the season, Yuki Tsunoda’s stint at Red Bull has so far turned out to be an outright failure.

After ten Grands Prix, the Japanese driver has collected a meager total of just 10 points, also suffering a string of painful eliminations in qualifying.

However, for Yuki, the arrival of Laurent Mekies — who replaced the dismissed Christian Horner — could represent one last lifeline, even though, as reported by GPBlog, he will leave the Milton Keynes-based team at the end of the season.

Yuki Tsunoda

Will Mekies revive Tsunoda?

Speaking to Tom Clarkson on the F1 Nation podcast, Jolyon Palmer also believes that Mekies' arrival could be a positive factor for Tsunoda in this second half of the season.

''If you've got two cars that are the same, you have to understand why one driver is so good and the other one isn't,'' he said.

''Even Red Bull as a team are scratching their heads thinking how can no one get near Max. So when you've got now a team principal that hasn't worked with Max in this capacity, as Christian had sort of developed Max into the champion that he is, always coming through with Red Bull and they won their titles together.''

Having already worked with Tsunoda in the past and knowing his potential, Palmer expects the spark between them could be reignited.

''Laurent has actually come from working with Yuki Tsunoda and with Liam Lawson in the past. That was his first foray into being a team principal. So he's kind of the underdog mentality.''

He then added: ''I think he's going to be definitely arm around Yuki and thinking, come on, you were great when you drove with me. You were qualifying up in the front three rows. What is going on here?''

''And trying to understand the second driver role a bit more, which I think will be helpful, whether or not he'll be able to actually find the performance there is obviously the bigger head scratcher for the team.''