Oscar Piastri completed a clean sweep of practice sessions for McLaren in Bahrain, beating team mate Lando Norris by six tenths of a second in the final hour of running before qualifying.
However lap times in the third practice session were over a second slower than yesterday.
Track conditions were not quite as hot as in first practice yesterday, but still well above the temperatures which are expected for qualifying. Several drivers remarked the track lacked grp.
George Russell was among them after spinning his Mercedes at the exit of turn 10. “I’d probably go as far as saying that’s the least amount of grip I’ve ever had in an F1 car,” the said afterwards.
Russell ended the session fourth fastest, less than a tenth of a second ahead of Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the second Mercedes. Charles Leclerc was the only driver to get within a second of Piastri.
Pierre Gasly impressed with the sixth-fastest time in his Alpine, but was in are of the McLaren drivers’ pace. “I can’t believe how fast these McLarens are at the moment,” he remarked near the end of the session.
As usual, Racing Bulls appeared to reveal more of their pace than the senior Red Bull team, Isack Hadjar taking seventh ahead of Max Verstappen.
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Carlos Sainz Jnr was ninth for Williams but reported a potential problem with his car on the way back to the pits. “There’s something with the engine that is not behaving normal,” he told his team. Lewis Hamilton completed the top 10.
Nico Hulkenberg’s session came to an early end when his Sauber ground to a halt halfway around a lap. A Virtual Safety Car period was used while his C45 was pushed behind a barrier.
But despite completing just seven laps he still ended the session ahead of Yuki Tsunoda. The new Red Bull driver was last, almost two seconds off team mate Verstappen.
2025 Bahrain Grand Prix Grand Prix third practice result
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner fears McLaren is “a few tenths” too quick for any of its rivals in Bahrain, with a repeat of Max Verstappen’s outstanding Suzuka victory unlikely.
Oscar Piastri topped McLaren team-mate Lando Norris in Friday’s second practice session, with the pair half a second clear of Mercedes’ George Russell and Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc.
Having sat out FP1 to give Red Bull reserve Ayumu Iwasa an outing, Verstappen was seventh – eight tenths behind – with Yuki Tsunoda down in 18th after conducting set-up experiments.
According to team boss Horner, McLaren is a class apart this weekend as the hot and abrasive Bahrain circuit looks set to favour the papaya squad.
“We’ve got quite a bit to do tonight, I think,” Horner told Viaplay. “The McLarens look very, very quick. With Mercedes and Ferrari it all looks pretty close, but McLaren definitely look like they have a few tenths on the rest of the field.
“First of all, we’ve got to understand how we can improve what we have, which is mainly temperature-related, I think.”
Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images
Red Bull overhauled its set-up last weekend in Japan after a similarly difficult Friday to give Verstappen a shot at taking an outstanding pole, but Horner fears Bahrain’s more abrasive layout will reward McLaren’s better tyre usage and make it harder to keep faster cars at bay in the race.
“It is impossible to repeat what he did last week over a single lap and then holding the cars behind for an entire grand prix,” Horner cautioned. “This is a track you can overtake at relatively easily, so a lot of work to do with the engineers tonight.”
Not just engine modes
Speaking to Autosport, the team’s advisor Helmut Marko painted a similar picture, and while Red Bull tends to run with less powerful engine modes in practice he said the squad’s deficit went well beyond that.
“We are too slow and the tyres are becoming far too hot,” the Austrian said. “It’s basically confirming what Max already said yesterday, that Bahrain will be a more difficult one for Red Bull.
“The main problem is the tyre temperature, which we can’t keep under control. And as soon as the temperature goes up, we are sliding, which makes it worse.
“Strangely enough, at one stage the tyre recovered and we were doing the same lap times as Lando, but that was only three or four laps out of 15. This track just doesn’t suit us and neither do these high temperatures.”
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Filip Cleeren
Formula 1
Max Verstappen
Yuki Tsunoda
Red Bull Racing
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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner fears McLaren is “a few tenths” too quick for any of its rivals in Bahrain, with a repeat of Max Verstappen’s outstanding Suzuka victory unlikely.
Oscar Piastri topped McLaren team-mate Lando Norris in Friday’s second practice session, with the pair half a second clear of Mercedes’ George Russell and Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc.
Having sat out FP1 to give Red Bull reserve driver Ayumu Iwasa an outing, Verstappen was down in seventh – eight tenths behind – with Yuki Tsunoda down in 18th after conducting set-up experiments to help the Japanese driver settle.
According to team boss Horner, McLaren is a class apart this weekend as the hot and abrasive Bahrain circuit looks set to favour the papaya squad.
“We’ve got quite a bit to do tonight, I think,” Horner told Viaplay. “The McLarens look very, very quick. With Mercedes and Ferrari it all looks pretty close, but McLaren definitely look like they have a few tenths on the rest of the field.
“First of all, we’ve got to understand how we can improve what we have, which is mainly temperature-related, I think.”
Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images
Red Bull overhauled its set-up last weekend in Japan after a similarly difficult Friday to give Verstappen a shot at taking an outstanding pole, but Horner fears Bahrain’s more abrasive layout will reward McLaren’s better tyre usage and make it harder to keep faster cars at bay in the race.
“It is impossible to repeat what he did last week over a single lap and then holding the cars behind for an entire grand prix,” he cautioned. “This is a track you can overtake at relatively easily, so a lot of work to do with the engineers tonight.”
Not just engine modes
Speaking to Motorsport.com, the team’s advisor Helmut Marko painted a similar picture, and while Red Bull tends to run with less powerful engine modes in practice he said the squad’s deficit went well beyond that.
“We are too slow and the tyres are becoming far too hot,” the Austrian concluded. “It’s basically confirming what Max already said yesterday, that Bahrain will be a more difficult one for Red Bull. The main problem is the tyre temperature, which we can’t keep under control. And as soon as the temperature goes up, we are sliding, which makes it worse.
“Strangely enough, at one stage the tyre recovered and we were doing the same lap times as Lando, but that was only three or four laps out of 15. This track just doesn’t suit us and neither do these high temperatures.”
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Filip Cleeren
Formula 1
Max Verstappen
Yuki Tsunoda
Red Bull Racing
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Lando Norris led a hot opening practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix which resulted in two of his rivals facing investigation.
Yuki Tsunoda and Alexander Albon have been summoned by the stewards over two separate incidents during the session.
The Williams driver is under investigation for impeding his own team mate, Luke Browning, who was driving Carlos Sainz Jnr’s in this session. Browning caught the other Williams at turn 13, Albon moved off the racing line too late and Browning had to drive onto the run-off area.
“Wowch, that was close,” remarked Felipe Drugovich, another rookie getting a chance to drive in practice, as he followed Albon.
Tsunoda is under investigation for overtaking Albon in the pit lane. The Red Bull driver also slipped up by failing to stop at his new team’s garage, instead driving towards the Racing Bulls pit stop, until his race engineer Richard Wood pointed out his mistake. Albon, Tsunoda and Browning are to speak to the stewards following first practice.
The session took place in hot conditions, the ambient temperature reaching 35C which the track surface was over 46C.
Pierre Gasly set the second-fastest time for Alpine ahead of Lewis Hamilton, as he evaluated Ferrari’s changes to its floor. Albon was fourth despite his travails and Esteban Ocon took fifth for Haas. Nico Hulkenberg’s Sauber ensured six different cars appeared in the top six.
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Browning was quickest among the rookie drivers and was complimented on his efforts by race engineer Gaetan Jego and team principal James Vowles. “You did really good for the whole hour,” said Jego.
Dino Beganovic was 14th in his first outing for Ferrari, two places ahead of Drugovich, who was only eight-hundredths of a second off Aston Martin’s regular driver Lance Stroll. Ryo Hirakawa was 17th for Haas, followed by Frederik Vesti in George Russell’s Mercedes and Ayumu Iwasa in Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli ended the session at the bottom of the times after being forced to pit early on with a technical problem in his Mercedes which caused a loss of power.
2025 Bahrain Grand Prix Grand Prix first practice result
Yuki Tsunoda says that he gravitated more towards Max Verstappen’s set-up in his first Formula 1 weekend with Red Bull in Japan, and reckoned it was “incredible” how the four-time world champion could work with it.
After his debut with the RB21, Tsunoda noted that there were clear differences between the car on track and in the simulator, but had otherwise looked at home with the team before missing the tyre warm-up window in Q2. This led to him only qualifying 15th – lining up 14th when Carlos Sainz took a penalty.
Tsunoda explained that, because of his limited experience and running with the car thanks to a series of interrupted practice sessions, he ended up tweaking his set-up to move more towards how Verstappen likes his car – adding that he was generally happy to make the switch.
The Japanese driver revealed that he tried Verstappen’s full set-up in the simulator and was impressed at how the four-time champion could hang on to it, but stated that the team knew it wasn’t the way to develop the car.
“In terms of how I got on in the car, it’s still OK, it’s too early stages to say I’m able to drive comfortably or not. But I think I’m able to cope with the car balance that most drivers struggle with so far,” Tsunoda explained.
Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Jayce Illman – Getty Images
“Actually, we went to Max’s side rather than my set-up, which I thought would be good. Surprisingly, I’m able to drive quite well so I’m happy with it so far.
“The direction we tried in the simulator, which was a bit different [from] China to focus on calming down the rear, and the set-up we concluded in the end I felt was good.
“Also, Max felt pretty positive in the simulator, so in the end, also Max started with that direction which I quite liked as well already at Suzuka. I went for a more extreme side in that direction and it just didn’t work out.
“It’s not like the set-up that Max used in China; China was a bit more specific because it was more front-end limitation. But Max’s set-up helps [the rear] and I think that set-up probably in the simulator I feel definitely the trickiness.
“It’s incredible how he’s able to cope with that kind of set-up.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Andrej Isakovic – AFP – Getty Images
Tsunoda also explained that the other difference between Red Bull and Racing Bulls was in how it coaches the drivers for preparing the tyres for a qualifying lap.
He reckoned that his former team was more willing to feed back to the drivers with information on what to do in a warm-up lap, while Red Bull is more willing to put the onus on the driver.
“It’s a different approach,” said Tsunoda. “I feel like VCARB will tell us how to do it, and Red Bull is more like they can adjust it from the out lap. It’s quite a different approach there and I wouldn’t say which is better or not, to be honest.
“There are a couple of things that feel like VCARB has an easier approach for the driver, more than Red Bull. But I think Max has had that approach for nine years, so he’s just able to naturally do it.
“I probably have a little bit of digging to work out what kind of approach I should take, and it’s an ongoing process, how we can do better as a team to make it a little bit easier.”
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Jake Boxall-Legge
Formula 1
Max Verstappen
Yuki Tsunoda
Red Bull Racing
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Yuki Tsunoda says that he gravitated more towards Max Verstappen’s set-up in his first Formula 1 weekend with Red Bull in Japan, and reckoned it was “incredible” how the four-time world champion could work with it.
After his first weekend with the RB21, Tsunoda noted that there were clear differences between the car on track and in the simulator, but had otherwise looked at home with the team before missing the tyre warm-up window in Q2. This led to him only qualifying 15th – lining up 14th when Carlos Sainz took a penalty.
Tsunoda explained that, because of his limited experience and running with the car thanks to a series of interrupted practice sessions, he ended up tweaking his set-up to move more towards how Verstappen likes his car – adding that he was generally happy to make the switch.
The Japanese driver revealed that he tried Verstappen’s full set-up in the simulator and was impressed at how the four-time champion could hang on to it, but stated that the team knew it wasn’t the way to develop the car.
“In terms of how I got on in the car, it’s still OK, it’s too early stages to say I’m able to drive comfortably or not. But I think I’m able to cope with the car balance that most drivers struggle with so far,” Tsunoda explained.
Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Jayce Illman – Getty Images
“Actually, we went to Max’s side rather than my set-up, which I thought would be good. Surprisingly, I’m able to drive quite well so I’m happy with it so far.
“The direction we tried in the simulator, which was a bit different [from] China to focus on calming down the rear, and the set-up we concluded in the end I felt was good.
“Also, Max felt pretty positive in the simulator, so in the end, also Max started with that direction which I quite liked as well already at Suzuka. I went for a more extreme side in that direction and it just didn’t work out.
“It’s not like the set-up that Max used in China; China was a bit more specific because it was more front-end limitation. But Max’s set-up helps [the rear] and I think that set-up probably in the simulator I feel definitely the trickiness.
“It’s incredible how he’s able to cope with that kind of set-up.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Tsunoda also explained that the other difference between Red Bull and Racing Bulls was in how it coaches the drivers for preparing the tyres for a qualifying lap.
He reckoned that his former team was more willing to feed back to the drivers with information on what to do in a warm-up lap, while Red Bull is more willing to put the onus on the driver.
“It’s a different approach,” Tsunoda said. “I feel like VCARB will tell us how to do it, and Red Bull is more like they can adjust it from the out lap. It’s quite a different approach there and I wouldn’t say which is better or not, to be honest.
“There are a couple of things that feel like VCARB has an easier approach for the driver, more than Red Bull. But I think Max has had that approach for nine years, so he’s just able to naturally do it.
“I probably have a little bit of digging to work out what kind of approach I should take, and it’s an ongoing process, how we can do better as a team to make it a little bit easier.”
Photos from Bahrain – Thursday
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Jake Boxall-Legge
Formula 1
Max Verstappen
Yuki Tsunoda
Red Bull Racing
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Isack Hadjar has not been put off by the struggles of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mates, insisting he wants to end up in a seat next to the reigning Formula 1 world champion even more as a result.
After Sergio Perez’s struggles last year, Liam Lawson was demoted from Red Bull back to Racing Bulls after just two grands prix for the ‘A’ team, with Yuki Tsunoda swapping places.
Hadjar has meanwhile quietly gone about his business at the past two rounds. The French rookie crashed out on his F1 debut before the Australian Grand Prix had even started, but put in a strong showing at the Chinese Grand Prix and scored his first points for Racing Bulls by finishing eighth in Japan last time out.
His upturn in performance has largely played out in the background of the Red Bull drivers’ switch, but witnessing the situation from close quarters has not deterred Hadjar from aiming for a promotion of his own in the future.
“Honestly, now that it seems like it’s really hard to be next to Max, it makes me want to go even more, to find out why, what’s going on. That’s still the main target,” he said.
“It’s not like I don’t need to work anymore. Still, I always put the pressure on me to keep delivering. So now the expectations from people are maybe a bit higher, but I keep doing what I do.
Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
“Like I said before the season, my target would be to keep… If the car can finish in P9 or P8, I want to be there, maximise it, not being outside the top 10. If the car deserves the top 10, then I need to be on it.”
Indeed, behind Verstappen, Hadjar is the highest-scoring driver in the Red Bull stable across the three races and one sprint so far this season – although he admits results for Tsunoda at Racing Bulls were “not fair”.
Tsunoda’s task – starting at this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix – is to now get more out of the Red Bull than Lawson managed in his two races for the senior squad before returning to the team he raced for at the back end of last season.
It has been widely accepted that the Racing Bulls is a much easier car to drive with a bigger operating window when compared to the somewhat uncompromising Red Bull which Verstappen led to victory at Suzuka.
“I think it’s probably a fair thing to say. It’s definitely a bigger window, easier to drive, but I think that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Red Bull is just undriveable. It just maybe takes a bit more time to get that comfort in it,” explained Lawson.
“[The Racing Bulls car] is not crazy different from last year, so it was more of just an adjustment back from what I’d been driving at the start of this year, and it’s quite different, but I feel good.
“I think the weekend [in Japan] as well didn’t really show properly what I think we were capable of. Unfortunately we just missed out in quality, but in general I think I felt pretty comfortable.”
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Mark Mann-Bryans
Formula 1
Max Verstappen
Yuki Tsunoda
Liam Lawson
Isack Hadjar
Red Bull Racing
RB
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Isack Hadjar has not been put off by the struggles of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mates, insisting he wants to end up in a seat next to the reigning Formula 1 world champion even more as a result.
After Sergio Perez’s struggles last year, Liam Lawson was demoted from Red Bull back to Racing Bulls after just two races for the senior team, with Yuki Tsunoda swapping places.
Meanwhile, Hadjar has quietly gone about his business at the past two grands prix. The French rookie crashed out on his F1 debut before the Australian Grand Prix had even started but put in a strong showing at the Chinese Grand Prix and scored his first points for Racing Bulls by finishing eighth in Japan last time out.
Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls
Photo by: Clive Mason/Getty Images
His upturn in performance has largely played out in the background of the Red Bull drivers’ switch, but witnessing the situation from close quarters has not deterred Hadjar from aiming for a promotion of his own in the future.
“Honestly, now that it seems like it’s really hard to be next to Max, it makes me want to go even more, to find out why, what’s going on. That’s still the main target,” he said.
“It’s not like I don’t need to work anymore, you know. Still, I always put the pressure on me to keep delivering. So now the expectations from people are maybe a bit higher, but I keep doing what I do.
“Like I said before the season, my target would be to keep… If the car can finish in P9 or P8, I want to be there, maximise it, not being outside the top 10. If the car deserves the top 10, then I need to be on it.”
Indeed, behind Verstappen, Hadjar is the highest-scoring driver in the Red Bull stable across the three races and one sprint so far this season – although he admits results for Tsunoda at Racing Bulls were “not fair”.
Tsunoda’s task – starting at this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix – is to now get more out of the Red Bull than Lawson managed in his two races for the senior squad before returning to the team he raced for at the back end of last season.
Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls Team
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
It has been widely accepted that the Racing Bulls is a much easier car to drive with a bigger operating window when compared to the somewhat uncompromising Red Bull which Verstappen led to victory at Suzuka.
“I think it’s probably a fair thing to say. It’s definitely a bigger window, easier to drive, but I think that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Red Bull is just undriveable. It just maybe takes a bit more time to get that comfort in it,” explained Lawson.
“[The Racing Bulls car] is not crazy different from last year, so it was more of just an adjustment back from what I’d been driving at the start of this year, and it’s quite different, but I feel good.
“I think the weekend [in Japan] as well didn’t really show properly what I think we were capable of. Unfortunately we just missed out in quality, but in general I think I felt pretty comfortable.”
Photos from Bahrain – Thursday
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Mark Mann-Bryans
Formula 1
Max Verstappen
Liam Lawson
Isack Hadjar
Yuki Tsunoda
Red Bull Racing
Racing Bulls
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Seldom has it been more important in Formula 1 to seize the moment. While the first three grands prix of the season have been at outlier venues which have relatively little in common with most circuits on the calendar, all of them have been won from pole position.
A small sample size, granted, but a consensus is forming among the teams and drivers that ‘dirty air’ – the problem the current ground-effect rules were supposed to mitigate – is back.
Qualifying has therefore become the most important phase of the weekend, followed by the first lap. And therein lies Yuki Tsunoda’s biggest challenge.
There was much to unpick from Tsunoda’s first race weekend in the Red Bull cockpit. Being just a tenth off team-mate Max Verstappen in FP1 seemed impressive but that may have been the point: team boss Christian Horner denied Yuki was running a higher engine mode, but the data seemed to suggest otherwise.
Thereafter the gap widened, though there were extenuating circumstances such as the red flags which prevented him from setting a representative performance lap in FP2. Still, he seemed to be fighting the car less than his predecessor, Liam Lawson – but he couldn’t string a quick lap together when it really counted.
Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Clive Mason/Getty Images
Tsunoda clearly had the pace to reach Q3, unlike Lawson or indeed late-period Sergio Perez, but he fluffed his lines in Q2 at two key moments where the RB21’s snappiness caught him out: at the Suzuka chicane, costing him speed on the front straight, and at the tightening radius of Turn 2. His first run, on used soft-compound Pirellis, hadn’t been good enough to make the cut, rendering the second run more critical.
That condemned him to a finish outside the top 10 on a race day where overtaking required you to be almost a second a lap faster than the car in front.
Tsunoda’s mandate at Red Bull isn’t to beat or even match Verstappen, but to play the team game as number two: collect points, ensure rivals score fewer, and be a lurking presence to dissuade other teams from playing tactical games. Had the circumstances of tyre performance, dirty air and traffic played out differently in Japan, McLaren could have split its strategy to attack Verstappen’s lead. In future races it might become less averse to risk.
So that means getting on top of the RB21, a car whose front and rear axles are regularly at loggerheads over who will reach the apex first. After qualifying in Suzuka, Tsunoda suggested a gust of wind might have been responsible for the snap at Turn 2 – there’s a get-out-of-jail-free card which will wear thin ere long – but admitted that he hadn’t nailed the tyre preparation as well as he could and should.
Where Verstappen has had the measure of recent team-mates is his feel for how to load up the front wheels progressively enough to avoid provoking the RB21’s tetchy rear axle. It’s not a car which rewards a gung-ho style of driving, no matter what Max’s detractors might think of him. Since the car isn’t going to change in the short term, Tsunoda needs to learn to make it work for him.
Interestingly, both Red Bull drivers evaluated higher downforce levels during FP3 at Suzuka but Verstappen gravitated away from this while Tsunoda didn’t. The obvious conclusion is that Yuki felt more confident with the car in this trim even if it didn’t yield the performance peaks Max subsequently found in his stunning pole lap.
Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
What Tsunoda needs is more time in the car, having discovered that its more eccentric traits manifest themselves differently to how they did in Red Bull’s simulator. But that momentum will be difficult to sustain this weekend in Bahrain, where the circuit has very different characteristics from those which hosted the first three rounds.
Bahrain International Circuit dates from a period where Hermann Tilke, F1’s architect of choice in the Bernie Ecclestone era, believed the way to engineer overtaking opportunities was to provoke drivers into making mistakes by incorporating tricksy camber changes, and to have wide approaches into slow and medium-speed corners, with major traction events to follow. There are very few high-speed corners which reward peak downforce.
On paper, then, not a track on which the RB21 will flourish. Even Verstappen looked ragged in testing.
All those slow corners are a recipe for a scruffy lap in a car which snaps from understeer to oversteer. All this adds up to a greater challenge for Tsunoda because it will likely punish his lack of experience in the RB21.
What he needs right now is consistency, and he’s not likely to get it.
Read Also:
In this article
Stuart Codling
Formula 1
Yuki Tsunoda
Red Bull Racing
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Seldom has it been more important in Formula 1 to seize the moment. While the first three grands prix of the season have been at outlier venues which have relatively little in common with most circuits on the calendar, all of them have been won from pole position.
A small sample size, granted, but a consensus is forming among the teams and drivers that ‘dirty air’ – the problem the current ground-effect rules were supposed to mitigate – is back.
Read Also:
Qualifying has therefore become the most important phase of the weekend, followed by the first lap. And therein lies Yuki Tsunoda’s biggest challenge.
There was much to unpick from Tsunoda’s first race weekend in the Red Bull cockpit. Being just a tenth off team-mate Max Verstappen in FP1 seemed impressive but that may have been the point: team boss Christian Horner denied Tsunoda was running a higher engine mode, but the data seemed to suggest otherwise.
Thereafter the gap widened, though there were extenuating circumstances such as the red flags which prevented him from setting a representative performance lap in FP2. Still, he seemed to be fighting the car less than his predecessor, Liam Lawson – but he couldn’t string a quick lap together when it really counted.
Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Clive Mason/Getty Images
Tsunoda clearly had the pace to reach Q3, unlike Lawson or indeed late-period Sergio Perez, but he fluffed his lines in Q2 at two key moments where the RB21’s snappiness caught him out: at the chicane, costing him speed on the front straight, and at the tightening radius of Turn 2. His first run, on used soft-compound Pirellis, hadn’t been good enough to make the cut, rendering the second run more critical.
That condemned him to a finish outside the top 10 on a race day where overtaking required you to be almost a second a lap faster than the car in front.
Tsunoda’s mandate at Red Bull isn’t to beat or even match Verstappen, but to play the team game as number two: collect points, ensure rivals score fewer, and be a lurking presence to dissuade other teams from playing tactical games. Had the circumstances of tyre performance, dirty air and traffic played out differently at Suzuka, McLaren could have split its strategy to attack Verstappen’s lead. In future races it might become less averse to risk.
Read Also:
So that means getting on top of the RB21, a car whose front and rear axles are regularly at loggerheads over who will reach the apex first. After qualifying in Suzuka, Tsunoda suggested a gust of wind might have been responsible for the snap at Turn 2 – there’s a get-out-of-jail-free card which will wear thin ere long – but admitted that he hadn’t nailed the tyre preparation as well as he could and should.
Where Verstappen has had the measure of recent team-mates is his feel for how to load up the front wheels progressively enough to avoid provoking the RB21’s tetchy rear axle. It’s not a car which rewards a gung-ho style of driving, no matter what Verstappen’s detractors might think of him. Since the car isn’t going to change in the short term, Tsunoda needs to learn to make it work for him.
Interestingly, both Red Bull drivers evaluated higher downforce levels during FP3 at Suzuka but Verstappen gravitated away from this while Tsunoda didn’t. The obvious conclusion is that Tsunoda felt more confident with the car in this trim even if it didn’t yield the performance peaks Verstappen subsequently found in his stunning pole lap.
Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
What Tsunoda needs is more time in the car, having discovered that its more eccentric traits manifest themselves differently to how they did in Red Bull’s simulator. But that momentum will be difficult to sustain this weekend in Bahrain, where the circuit has very different characteristics from those which hosted the first three rounds.
Bahrain International Circuit dates from a period where Hermann Tilke, F1’s architect of choice in the Bernie Ecclestone era, believed the way to engineer overtaking opportunities was to provoke drivers into making mistakes by incorporating tricksy camber changes, and to have wide approaches into slow and medium-speed corners, with major traction events to follow. There are very few high-speed corners which reward peak downforce.
On paper, then, not a track on which the RB21 will flourish. Even Verstappen looked ragged in testing.
All those slow corners are a recipe for a scruffy lap in a car which snaps from understeer to oversteer. All this adds up to a greater challenge for Tsunoda because it will likely punish his lack of experience in the RB21.
What he needs right now is consistency, and he’s not likely to get it.
In this article
Stuart Codling
Formula 1
Yuki Tsunoda
Red Bull Racing
Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics
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