There is a mutual understanding at play between Yuki Tsunoda and Max Verstappen that the Red Bull debutant will have to figure things out for himself at the Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix.
Tsunoda has been dropped into the Red Bull RB21 for his home GP at Suzuka, swapping with Liam Lawson, who had just two rounds to get to grips with the capricious F1 car.
The narrow performance window on the RB21 caught Lawson out, like many of Verstappen’s team-mates before him, and Tsunoda will be doing his best to avoid the same.
Given Verstappen has been able to wrestle Red Bull F1 cars with great success in recent years, he could prove to be a valuable asset to Tsunoda’s acclimation, but the Dutchman sees things differently.
“No, I’ve only seen Yuki yesterday quickly, and he’s been busy at the factory,” Verstappen told select media, including Motorsport Week, on Thursday.
“But at the end of the day, it’s not really up to me. He has to find it out himself. Because my experience might not be his experience.”
Tsunoda hoping to rely on his experience
Tsunoda agrees with Verstappen, well aware that it’s up to him to settle into the second Red Bull seat.
The Japanese driver explained, “I think even if I tapped [Verstappen’s] shoulder and asked about the car, I don’t think he’s going to say the truth, you know? So I just try to discover it myself in the data, how he’s driving, also on onboard videos.
“I already checked multiple videos from him in the last two Grand Prix,” Tsunoda added.
“Like I said, I didn’t feel the trickiness yet – the clear trickiness of the car,” he continued, referencing his simulator testing.
“I’ll feel it myself, and I’m sure it also depends on driving style. It will behave a little bit different.
“Once I feel the car… in my five years of experience, I believe that will give me some ideas to sort it out.
“And if I really struggle, whatever… no, I still don’t think I’ll ask him. I’ll just try to discover it with my engineers.”
“So far, they’ve been very helpful. [My engineer] already gave some ideas about what kind of characteristics give drivers very little confidence.
“That information is already stuck in my head and it’s pretty clear. So I’ll just see how it goes after FP1.”
Tsunoda can sense why previous Red Bull drivers struggled
During his simulator testing in the RB21 ahead of the Japanese GP, Tsunoda noted he could sense the issues his predecessors faced.
However, the Japanese driver wasn’t overwhelmed by the “trickiness” of the RB21 and has an idea of where to take his set-up this coming weekend.
“In the simulator obviously it’s not fully correct in terms of trickiness of the car, but at least it didn’t feel crazy tricky,” he said.
“I can feel what the drivers mentioned about the instability or lack of driving confidence.
“I did multiple setups that I wanted to try to make it better and those two days seemed pretty productive.
“I know what kind of direction I want to start and it seems to be a good baseline in terms of overall performance.
“So yeah, it was a really good simulator session.”
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