Tsunoda discovers a more "delicate" RB21 than expected: "A little different from what I felt in the simulator"

Yuki tsunoda aboard a Red Bull, it is now a reality. This Friday, in front of his home crowd, Liam Lawson's successor took to the track for the first time in his new colours... well, almost, because of the special livery, the Red Bull RB21 and its drivers are all dressed in white, like for Racing Bulls. After a quick adaptation to the simulator, the Japanese took the wheel of the car Austrian for the first time. A studious and error-free first day, although disrupted by four red flags during Free Practice 2.

Author of the 6th time during Free Practice 1, just behind his new teammate Max Verstappen, Yuki Tsunoda had to settle for only 18th time in Free Practice 2, 2 seconds off the benchmark set by Oscar piastri. The fault lies with the numerous session interruptions according to the new Red Bull driver. "The first day was better than expected, it was a good start for me. But in FP2, I wasn't able to set a representative time, explained the Japanese, aware of the task facing him this weekend. I think there's a lot of work to do, maybe I struggled a little bit or there's something we need to look at [more] through the EL2 data. But for now, it's okay, I just need to gain confidence."

Tsunoda still has work to do to tame the RB21

Just a week after his promotion to Red Bull, and after a few simulator sessions in Milton Keynes, Yuki Tsunoda was able to experience the real RB21 on track... and according to the Japanese driver, it lives up to its reputation as an extremely sophisticated car to drive. If he had confirmed, in a press conference on Thursday, the instability of the RB21 after its passage in the simulator – even though he had also declared that he had not « "did not find the car very difficult to drive" – the Japanese pilot admits that his new vehicle is more difficult to pilot in real life than in a simulator.

“It’s a little bit different from what I felt in the simulator, to be honest, it’s maybe a little bit more sensitive than I expected in terms of how the car feels, said Yuki Tsunoda after his first two sessions at Red Bull. But anyway, I knew it would be a little different in the real car. The sensations are a little stronger than I expected, it's a little more exaggerated in reality, a little more delicate. We still have work to do and we have a lot of things to explore in the data before [Saturday]. On home soil, will Yuki Tsunoda manage to tame the RB21 in time and secure a Q3 finish for his debut with Red Bull? As a reminder, in Australia and China, Liam Lawson failed to qualify in Q1.

ALSO READ > Alonso in a state of confusion after his exit from the track: "I lost the car in a rather strange way"