Tsunoda opens up: Why Verstappen gets more from the Red Bull

20:45, 28 Jun

bySienna Ionta

Tsunoda says he’s growing more confident in his setup direction, but admitted that he’s still struggling to fully unlock the potential of his car in qualifying — and that Max Verstappen’s ability to adapt to the car’s quirks makes the difference.

“It’s working,” Tsunoda spoke to the media including GPblog of his recent setup approach. “I showed I guess in the last few sessions during qualifying it is working well and I feel more confident than any Grand Prix… but I’m just not able to somehow put it all together in qualifying.”

The Red Bull driver managed to qualify in P18 as he failed to make it out of Q1, his teammate Verstappen also faced issues during qualifying with a yellow flag affecting his results, however he managed P7.

Yuki on the gap to Verstappen

Despite feeling the pace was there for a Q3 result, the Japanese driver said inconsistency and difficulty adapting to a narrow performance window held him back: “I still think with this kind of very narrow window car you just want to have a consistent car as much as possible. And obviously, I guess Max is probably reporting the same to you too, but at least he knows about this car, how to handle it.”

“Even with that kind of bit of surprise between the rounds and everything, he can probably adapt within that. But myself... I'm not in the level that I can adjust fully in the lap or maximise it within the package.”

Tsunoda stopped short of calling the car undrivable but admitted: “I’ll say harder car, difficult car, but at the same time it's not like undrivable.”

Both drivers agreed on issues with their Red Bull cars today.