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Yuki Tsunoda was at a loss to explain why he had been unable to improve his Red Bull’s performance after qualifying last for the Spanish Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver said yesterday he was concerned about his lack of pace in practice. His struggle continued in qualifying where he lapped over half a second slower than team mate Max Verstappen in Q1 and was eliminated in last place.
“It’s pretty tough,” Tsunoda told the official F1 channel. “Throughout the week I tried to solve the issue as much as possible.
“I was mentioning from FP1 that I had some strange issue that it was just not gripping at all. We tried our best to solve the issue but I don’t think we were able to cure it.
“Whatever we made in terms of set-up changes it was always kind of a cluster of feelings and it’s just not giving an overall step forward. It’s very strange.”
Although Tsunoda reported a possible problem with his car’s floor during the session, he does not believe there was anything specifically which explained why he was so far off the pace.
“Honestly the lap itself was okay,” he said. “There’s not anything, a mistake or whatever, in both laps.
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“Even, probably, if we put three sets [of tyres] on I don’t think I would have been able to [reach Q2]. With that pace, it’s tough.”
As he is set to start from last place, Tsunoda is pessimistic about his chances of gaining ground, despite having made set-up changes to his car before qualifying.
“The thing is, this also applies to the long-run pace as well,” he said. “In FP2 the long-run pace was really bad.
“There just isn’t a feeling. So far what I feel is just the car is eating its tyres a lot and every lap, whatever I do, I have degradation.
“But anyway hopefully the set-up change made some step forward. I’m hoping it will be better but realistically I’m a little bit less hopeful for that.”
This article will be updated.
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