Yuki Tsunoda says the pace he had in Singapore was the best he has ever had with Red Bull, considering the hopeless pace in the previous races.
With only handful of races left for Tsunoda to prove to Red Bull to retain him for F1 2026, the Japanese notes that he had his best race pace in Singapore since joining the outfit back in Round 3. Even though he hasn’t been on par with Max Verstappen in terms of parts, he has tried to show as much.
He has made less mistakes in his time at Red Bull, but the results hasn’t come by. It has been a difficult run much like his predecessors as his chance to retain the seat has lowered over the course. He couldn’t score in Singapore, but he felt it was best he felt in the car considering hopeless run before.
Unfortunately, for him, it has come at a time when Isack Hadjar is doing wonders at Visa Cash App RB and looks set to be promoted. “To be honest, the pace was one of the best I’ve had in my Red Bull career so far,” said Tsunoda to media. “The positive thing is the long run pace.
“Until two races ago, I was almost hopeless. The pace I had, whatever I did, I was almost P19, P18. But now I had a really good pace, very competitive more towards the top of the field. Now I just have to extract the grip on the one lap, which I am struggling at in the last two races.
“I just somehow couldn’t feel much grip. I think just putting it all together with a one lap pace and the long run is, I think, the key. If I’m able to do that, I think we’ll come together. That’s my main goal,” summed up Tsunoda, who reckons having Laurent Mekies at Red Bull has helped him a lot.
He feels his arrival allowed him to recall his time at Visa Cash App RB. “Yeah, he helped me a lot of things,” continued Tsunoda. “Especially like for example the setup that I tried to race this year was the things I was doing almost every race in VCARB. But I forgot that kind of things, that specific setup I was having all the time, because I thought that was default.
“But when it comes to this [Red Bull] team, how they set up was different. And Laurent gave us the engineering side that ‘Yuki was doing kind of these things different’ to add some extra performance from one of the idle axles to driving around the corners. And when I tried it in Red Bull car, it actually still works. And I actually got the feeling from the car that I can get.
“It’s much more familiar what I used to have at VCARB and I was able to feel slightly bit more than previous races. So these things, without Laurent’s idea, I wouldn’t able to come up with that idea. And that’s what I appreciate. And also as a relationship side, it’s always good. It’s like literally what I used to have in VCARB. And it feels exactly the same. And just the team logo feels different when I speak with him. So it’s really, really good,” summed up Tsunoda.
Here’s Laurent Mekies on zero contribution stance
Here’s Yuki Tsunoda on Singapore GP run
