Yuki Tsunoda hints at key reason behind Red Bull’s second driver problem

Yuki Tsunoda has admitted the setup window on this year’s Red Bull is “really hard to find”, making it a difficult challenge alongside Max Verstappen.

After just two races, Tsunoda was drafted into Red Bull instead of Liam Lawson.

While Tsunoda has proven to be an immediate upgrade on Lawson, scoring points at the Bahrain Grand Prix last time out, it’s been far from easy.

Tsunoda qualified 15th on his Red Bull debut at Suzuka, one place behind Lawson.

Bahrain was encouraging for Tsunoda as he progressed into Q3 and finished ninth, just three places behind Verstappen on what was a difficult weekend for Red Bull.

During the Bahrain GP weekend, Tsunoda spoke about the key differences between Red Bull and Racing Bulls.

“It’s not the same really,” he said as quoted by Motorsport Week.  “The thing is that to be in the window that the car performs, VCARB has much wider range, so whatever you’re doing almost, that car is able to operate quite well with any kind of balance.

“Red Bull has probably a specific kind of setup and the window, the tyre and everything. That narrow window is really hard to find.

“That kind of difference for me is quite big, because I never thought about warm-up and how to warm-up and setup.

“So that sort of stuff is just currently the most difficult part to learn for myself.”

Tsunoda has “confidence” in Red Bull

While Tsunoda's overall results in his two races for the team have been lacking, he still has confidence when driving the RB21.

Tsunda stressed the need to “understand” the car more and how to get the car into the right operating window.

“Yeah, confidence for the car, like I said, I think it’s quite good,” he added.  “I just have to understand about this car more, to operate in the window this car wants, and that’s the most difficult part.

“Those things will come with experience, just experience really.  So I have to step by step, every weekend I’m trying different sort of stuff, and sometimes it goes well, sometimes it goes bad.

“But I think those kind of up and down things are quite normal for me, so I just take time and progress like this rhythm.  Maybe in Saudi I’ll do the same.

“If the same thing happens, maybe practice, I’m not in good shape, but I’m happy that I’m able to be aggressive on trying something and progress forward.  I won’t rush it, but so far I’m happy with how fast I am able to progress.”