Tsunoda agrees with Zak Brown: 'Without Verstappen that is indeed true'

Tsunoda apparently has not read what Brown said, because initially, he did not understand the question. Once it was explained to him that Brown estimates that without Verstappen, Red Bull would be at the back of the midfield, Tsunoda nods in agreement.

“Well, it’s the truth that probably we’d be behind” he began.

It is, after all, only Verstappen who is currently scoring points for Red Bull, and not Tsunoda. The Japanese driver continues to struggle to extract performance from his car, earning seven points since joining Red Bull Racing ahead of the Japanese GP.

Tsunoda also mentions an excuse for the lagging performance. “But at the same time, I was not in the off-season tests there, so I don’t know. But VCARB so far, yeah, definitely performing well. I’ve shown good performance first two races. Probably if everything goes well with Australia, China was a bit hectic, and if the strategy, everything goes well, I was probably scoring a lot of points.”

“So it’s good that they’re (Racing Bulls) performing. But at the same time now, I’m fully focused on Red Bull, and it’s a car that definitely you can make it work. I just need, I guess, my opinion, just need more time, build the understanding, work hard to understand, work hard with the engineer as well. I just have to get his point more,” Tsunoda concluded.