Yuki Tsunoda says his tyres are melting in F1 races and he or the team is unable to understand it why, as Christian Horner notes about looking at it internally.
Even though it was close field in Red Bull’s Tsunoda’s knockout in F1 Austrian GP qualifying, but on the whole, it was yet another Q1 exit for the second car which has been a norm for few years now. In the race, after Max Verstappen’s early exit, there was no progress being made on Tsunoda’s end.
He was stuck behind cars and his tyres were degrading. He termed it as ‘melting’. Tsunoda doesn’t feel awful in the car, but still he isn’t getting to extract the same as Verstappen does. There is lack of experience in the Red Bull car certainly, but he doesn’t have the liberty of time at hand.
The main issue is identifying what is going wrong for them to solve the problem. He is finding new things at every step, which is hurting the confidence to drive the car. In addition to it, Tsunoda had a collision with Franco Colapinto in Austria, for which he apologised to the Argentine.
“The collision with Franco was my bad, obviously, the situation I was in, I think it was quite a poor move,” said Tsunoda to media. “Massive apologies to the team [for] how I ended up, and also at the same time, the pace itself was pretty poor as well. Not sure what I’m doing completely wrong, to be honest. But the pace delta between the level I have to be at is massive.
“So at the same time, obviously, I’m working hard to find the reasons of what’s the issue causing this. But even we see going through the data it’s hard to find, even for the engineers it’s really hard to find in terms of driving style difference with Max. Maybe I have to find from a different kind of view. But for now, it’s hard to find the reasons, but we have to find it anyway.
“It’s not like car is bad, especially after the first few laps, it feels amazing. But the thing is, I feel like the car or the tyre is just melting lap by lap, corner to corner whatever it is. It’s melting every lap and feeling less equipped lap by lap. And that situation it’s really hard to obviously maintain the pace. I tried multiple stuff this grand prix but it’s not working really. I have to find the reasons.
“The one-lap pace, I’m improving race by race, which is good. But when it comes to races, it’s just always a different story. Literally, the tyre is not holding at all. I don’t know; probably it’s worse than others, but maybe I’m doing [something] wrong, I have to find the reasons. Just when it comes to races, it’s just really hard, there’s just no grip. It’s positive that one-lap pace was OK this race.
“It’s just I don’t know what’s going on with the race pace,” summed up Tsunoda, who wanted to see how Verstappen was to perform in Austria. The Dutchman was not looking good either in the car until qualifying, after only managing a sixth place finish. He noted about undriveable car as well.
“For now yes, I was curious to see how Max was performing in this race but I’m sure it won’t be slow, as much as that [Tsunoda’s performance],” continued Tsunoda. “Maybe consistently, there is probably lap-by-lap, probably at least four tenths. It’s hard to find, at least something big, that is causing this much of a difference.”
Team boss Horner acknowledged another troubled run for Tsunoda, which has been a norm for him for several seasons now with the second car. The ‘confidence’ part is common in his answers and it was no different this time. Although, he noted that they will discuss internally about the problems.
“I mean Yuki had a horrible race and again it started to go wrong for him in Q1, his first run in Q1 was fine, second run, he made a mistake at Turn 1, then qualified badly,” said Horner to media. “Then he was running in traffic, unable to pass, then picks up a penalty and it just compounds things.
“So, of course, we’ll look to see how we can support him but there’s a big delta between the two cars and of course internally, we ask all of those questions that no doubt you ask in terms of why and we’ll look at obviously the car has evolved over years in a specific direction. But we’ll see if we can help Yuki and rebuild his confidence in Silverstone.”
Here’s the clash: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-austrian-grand-prix-tsunoda-handed-a-penalty-after-tipping-colapinto-into-a-spin.1836284543064988060
Here’s Max Verstappen, Christian Horner on Lap 1 hit
