RB Team Principal Laurent Mekies has laid out a challenge for Yuki Tusnoda to “keep surprising” in his fourth Formula 1 campaign amid an impressive start to 2024.
Tsunoda has remained with the Faenza-based RB squad since his F1 arrival in 2021, back when the team was known as AlphaTauri.
Seen as a proving ground for talent to progress to the Red Bull team, Tsunoda would’ve hoped his time in the squad would eventually land him a Red Bull drive as well.
But Tsunoda is still awaiting that chance and with RB now defined as a squad with the intent to be competitive, Mekies wants Tsunoda to keep the team progressing.
“What we are looking for from Yuki is that he does that next step,” Mekies said on the F1 Beyond the Grid Podcast.
“The top guys, they make steps. They come and understand something more about the tyres, they will be able to go faster in given situations.
“The core feelings they have in the car, how they link what they feel in the car with what they exchange with their engineers, how deep the relationship they can build with the team is.
“If you have the bandwidth for that, your understanding of the car increases.
“If you have the capacity to utilise it when you’re driving then you will go faster.
“Yuki is growing this capacity year after year and this is why there is still speed to come.
“He has been surprising the F1 world every single year. He’s in the fourth year. Is he going to keep surprising? That’s the question we have to answer.”
Proving to Mekies that he is capable of making a step will be vital if Tsunoda has ambitions beyond RB, particularly landing a seat at Red Bull.
According to the man himself, a seat at Red Bull is his main objective.
“If I get more interest from other teams that would be great,” Tsunoda said previously, with Aston Martin a potential avenue in the future given that in 2026 both the Silverstone squad and Tsunoda will have a mutual affiliation with Honda.
“Obviously, first priority would be Red Bull.”
Tsunoda’s task to impress both RB and its competitors will be measured on his competitiveness in comparison to experienced team-mate Daniel Ricciardo and having outqualified the Australian at both times of asking so far this season, he is succeeding in that regard.
Mekies added that Ricciardo’s presence in RB will help gauge Tsunoda’s progress.
“It’s fantastic in the way we are evaluating Yuki, the way we are trying to grow Yuki, to have Daniel with him,” he said.
“It gives a fantastic reference point and, therefore, for us, it’s as good as it gets to have the experience and the speed of Daniel, to have the raw speed and youth of Yuki.”
