Yuki Tsunoda finally broke his points scoring dry run in the Netherlands, finishing ninth despite mechanical woes as Red Bull got both cars home in the top 10 on a day that the Japanese racer called “special”.
Having not scored for Red Bull since his P10 in Imola back in May, the pressure has been mounting on Tsunoda to start picking up the points – and his cause was not helped by having an older-spec car than team mate Max Verstappen, nor the form of the two Racing Bulls drivers, who were picking up points on a regular basis.
But Tsunoda finally had his car upgraded to the same spec as Verstappen’s before the summer break, and looked to be in touch with his team mate throughout practice at Zandvoort.
His Qualifying did not quite go to plan – Tsunoda has not made Q3 since Miami – and he started outside the top 10 in P12. But a good getaway got him onto the fringes of the points, after he opted to start on the soft compound tyres.
Because of that, a relatively early pit stop for fresh rubber was required and that meant Tsunoda could not make the most of the Safety Car periods. He did stop again under the second for some more soft tyres but lost out to traffic – and was forced to make that C4 compound last 22 laps to the finish.
“There were a lot of moments where the Safety Car didn’t help. At some point I was P15, and the second Safety Car didn’t help at all, so [it] gave me a lot of challenges – almost too much,” Tsunoda said afterwards.
His race nearly unravelled further when a radio call came after he complained about a throttle map issue – the team telling their man that he was going to have to drive around the problem, which saw him not getting any power until he had applied 40% throttle.
“The last stint, even though I was out of the points still, I got some big issue that normally, probably in the first few years I would have kind of… not given up, but lose the confidence to drive fast,” Tsunoda explained.
“But I stayed focused, and in the end I got P9 which makes me really happy and even in those circumstances, [I was] able to overtake a couple of cars, which wasn’t easy.
“Normally P9 is not really special, but especially after seven races and with the car in that situation – that was special to me and gives me some confidence.”
Tsunoda has scored just nine points since he joined Red Bull at the third round of the season, enduring a difficult run that has included plenty of bad luck along the way. Having the same spec RB21 as his team mate has definitely made a difference – even if the result in Hungary before the summer break did not reflect that.
“I think the last especially three races, the team pushed me and gave me a lot of things to gain performance on the car and that helps a lot.
“So I massively appreciate the team for having massive support and it’s time for myself to adapt as much as possible and score points and be as close as possible with Max. It is just something, like I said, I needed a lot… I’ll keep pushing.”
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