Tsunoda delivered what Red Bull “anticipated from him” at crucial Abu Dhabi test

In the face of the post-season Pirelli tyre test, Red Bull’s performance engineer Ben Waterhouse has revealed that Yuki Tsunoda performed exactly how Red Bull had anticipated from the Japanese driver.

Despite being part of the Red Bull Junior Programme and having driven older Red Bull F1 cars during demonstration runs, Tsunoda has never completed a proper test of any kind for the Red Bull F1 outfit. Tuesday’s post-season Pirelli tyre test at the Yas Marina Circuit saw the Japanese driver get behind the wheel of a current Red Bull F1 machine for the very first time.

The Sagamihara-born driver racked up a total of 127 laps, of which his fastest lap was a 1m24.689s. Reflecting on his day, Tsunoda said that he felt himself comfortable behind the wheel of the Red Bull.

The other Red Bull RB20 was piloted by Isack Hadjar, who finished second in the F2 standings behind Sauber-bound Gabriel Bortoleto. The French driver notched up a total of 125 laps, posting a best time of 1m24.632s.

Red Bull’s Head of Performance Engineering, Ben Waterhouse explained that Tsunoda and Hadjar delivered during the single-day tyre test what the Milton Keynes-based outfit had anticipated from them.

“It has been a really productive day. Both cars ran reliably to complete more than 250 laps and the whole team continued to operate on a really high level after such a long season.

“We had Yuki in our car for the first time and Isack driving RB20 again following his recent outing in FP1 at the race weekend. We successfully completed the priority test items on both cars with both drivers performing to a very high level and delivering exactly what we anticipated from them.

“Yuki provided excellent feedback on the various tests performed on the 2025 Pirelli tyres offering valuable insight on the tyre changes Pirelli will introduce for next year, while Isack did a great job successfully completed all the procedural aero tests in the morning before performing both long and short runs evaluating a range of test items in the afternoon.

Waterhouse continued: “The data gathered today will now be analysed in more detail back at the factory in Milton Keynes and this data plus that gathered over the course of the season will help define further performance improvements for 2025.

“Big thanks to all of the team here and in Milton Keynes and Sakura and we now need to recover from the season and then a big push over the winter to bring further performance gains to RB21 with the aim of fighting for both Championships next year,” Waterhouse concluded.