“Yuki had his best weekend in a long time. We have said that a few times, but it is true.”
An 11th-place finish by a top-team racer seldom draws plaudits, but Red Bull Formula 1 team principal Laurent Mekies has expressed unabated satisfaction with Yuki Tsunoda’s Mexico Grand Prix drive.
In a second Red Bull car that often looks like a poisoned chalice, Tsunoda has always struggled to match four-time world champion Max Verstappen. The Japanese racer is down 21-0 in their qualifying head-to-head, and has scored just 25 points in 18 grands prix with the team – Verstappen has 285 to his name.
At Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Tsunoda failed to reach Q3 for the 15th time in 21 qualifying sessions (sprint included), but his deficit to Verstappen was the second-smallest over that period – ‘just’ 0.211s in Q2.
Tsunoda then jumped from 10th to eighth on the first lap, but Red Bull lengthened his stint until the end of lap 36 so that frontrunners Oscar Piastri, Kimi Antonelli, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton would need to overtake him before Max Verstappen’s own pitstop.
Tsunoda then had a slow tyre change and lost nine seconds, which likely cost him points as he finished just 3.6 seconds away from ninth-placed Esteban Ocon.
“Easy points,” the Red Bull racer told Sky Sports F1, claiming that the Mercedes cars were within reach – despite a half-a-minute gap under the chequered flag.
“Unfortunately, pitstop was there. But also, it's not just that. A couple of things that I flagged, but I wasn’t able to, I would say, avoid it or, I don't know, save those situations, which I can't say here.
“Very, very frustrating, to be honest. It was pretty much out of my control. And what I can control, I think I maximised it.”
In light of these mitigating circumstances, Red Bull’s satisfaction makes sense – to some extent.
“He was very, very close in quali to Max, I think it was two tenths in Q2,” Mekies told written media.
“Today, the first stint was very, very strong as well – two tenths, three tenths from Max, on the same very long first stint on the medium.” The actual deficit, excluding outliers (Verstappen battling with Hamilton, Tsunoda being overtaken by frontrunners on new tyres), exceeded four tenths on average.
“Then after, you know, fair enough, we left him out a bit longer because it was an advantage for us to do that, and we had a slightly long pitstop. So we killed a bit a few points that he would have scored on merit.
“And of course, it's one of the reasons why we want to take a bit more time before we make a decision on the drivers. Yuki is making steps forward, the other kids are making steps forward as well, so we have no reason to rush the decision. We will take a bit more time.”
Red Bull was initially planning on making a call on its driver line-ups – including Racing Bulls – around this time, but has a twofold problem.
Firstly, the team can’t find anyone suitable to drive its second car, as Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Sergio Perez, Liam Lawson and Tsunoda have failed to get close enough to Verstappen over the past seven seasons. Isack Hadjar is currently the favourite for that seat thanks to his impressive Racing Bulls performance.
Secondly, Red Bull is keen to promote its protege Arvid Lindblad – currently seventh in Formula 2 – but which of Lawson and Tsunoda should then be cast aside is not obvious.
Lindblad got to drive Verstappen’s RB21 in the opening practice session in Mexico, and outpaced all other rookies by seven tenths – he even beat Tsunoda, though one should point out this was not a competitive session.
“I think he did a great job,” Mekies said. “It's so difficult to step up in FP1, it's so difficult. You know, it's very different to test days. You don't have much tyres, you don't have many laps.
“And he did just a very, very good job. You know, you have seen on the timesheets by yourself, but he was very calm, he gave all the right feedback, he didn't put a foot wrong, he didn't break the car. Honestly, he has impressed us on that FP1, no question about that. We look forward to the next time in the car towards the end of the year.
“For the decision, as we said, as much as we accept that everyone would like us to decide, we are not in a rush. We will take all the time we need, give these guys as many chances as they can have to demonstrate on track who are the best.”
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