Yuki Tsunoda’s pace “dropped like hell” in disastrous Barcelona F1 qualifying

Yuki Tsunoda said his pace has “dropped like hell” in the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend after he ended up dead last in qualifying on Saturday.

Having struggled throughout practice, Tsunoda failed to make any tangible improvements in Q1, ending up slowest among all 20 runners with a time of 1m13.385s.

This was a quarter of a second shy of the cut-off mark for Q2 and around half a second down on the time his Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen set to finish second in the opening leg of qualifying.

The dismal performance left Tsunoda chasing answers, with the Japanese F1 driver pointing to a “core limitation” that he and his team were yet to understand or resolve.

“Until the previous grand prix, especially Monaco, I was having good progress throughout,” he told reporters including Crash.net .

“[In the] last grand prix, [in] some session I was matching or [I was] a bit faster than Max and suddenly it drops like hell. 

“Whatever I do [nothing changes]. Every lap - even long run was a good example. Just whatever I do, nothing happens and it feels like this car is eating the tyres like hell, having degradation massively.  

“It doesn't really stack up. I think the core limitation is still there and I don't know what it is and I can't really have any answer for that.”

Set-up not the problem for Tsunoda

Tsunoda ruled out a poor set-up choice as the root cause of his troubles, saying he was satisfied with the balance of the car in qualifying.

“I don't think it's set-up because we tried every set-up,” he said. “There's obviously some preference there, but I think I am still convinced that we're able to at least put it all together in terms of the car balance.

“Car balance itself is not bad and also my confidence was there. The lap in qualifying in both tyres, especially the last push, was pretty good. So it doesn't really stack up with my results and with the pace that I'm having.”

During Q1, Tsunoda asked Red Bull to check for any damage on the floor, as he tried to figure out a reason for his lack of pace.

Asked if a damaged car could be behind his misery, Tsunoda replied: “I rode slightly more aggressively after the last corner, but I don't think it's a... I didn't go really crazy at all. 

“I didn't accept the level and saw multiple cars going there. So it's not like I damaged the car.”

Starting 20th on a track that is difficult for overtaking, Tsunoda isn’t upbeat about his prospects for the race.

“I'll try my best tomorrow. What I can do to be in top 10, I'll do,” he said.

“But the thing is I don't think we were able to cure the core limitation since F2, which was like really lap by lap just tyres degrading. So in that sense it will be tough realistically. 

“But hopefully with a couple of set up changes we'll make it a little bit better. Other than that let's see how it goes.”

Tsunoda said he doesn’t see much point in Red Bull bring the car out of parc ferme rules to complete major changes - which would result in a pitlane start - as the team still hasn’t figured out the root cause of his troubles.

“As long as we find clear limitation or cause clear issues that we see in the car, I think we will take it,” he explained.

“But even myself, I don't think there's much point in changing the set-up because we did almost everything. 

“Exactly the same, just fou wheels just sliding around so. We have to discuss but I  can't see what kind of set-up will make the games change.”