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Yuki Tsunoda is encouraged by his progress in recent races, especially after reducing the deficit to Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen in qualifying.
Tsunoda has been labelled the “worst” of any Verstappen teammate by Jacques Villeneuve but is hoping to prove that claim wrong.
While Tsunoda was knocked out in Q1 at the Hungarian Grand Prix, he was just under two-tenths off Verstappen’s pace.
The introduction of a new floor upgrade ahead of qualifying at Spa has seen Tsunoda find a notable turn of speed.
Unfortunately for Tsunoda, his strong qualifying showing coincided with Red Bull’s weakest race of the year.
Max Verstappen could only finish the race in ninth, as he could not overtake Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson.
Reflecting on his season so far for Red Bull, Tsunoda is feeling “pretty positive”.
Tsunoda explained that the recent floor upgrade has made a significant difference.
cLooking back on the season so far, I can feel pretty positive, we’ve made progress, especially since the new floor upgrades were brought to Spa,” he said after the race in Hungary.
“The gap with Max continues to close, it may not feel like we are getting there but on paper we are only one tenth off his pace. I’m not sure many other drivers could get as close to him.
“I am heading straight to the factory tomorrow to go into the [simulator]. We need to investigate where we went wrong and put in some hard work over the summer break so that we don’t start the next half of the season how we finished this one. It’s frustrating but we will stay positive and bounce back stronger.”
Tsunoda’s tough Hungarian GP
After his Q1 exit, Yuki Tsunoda elected to start from the pit lane.
With overtaking nearly impossible, Tsunoda struggled to make any progress, ultimately finishing 17th.
Yuki Tsunoda on track in Hungary
His race was also hampered by damage to his front wing.
“We knew coming into today that it would be tricky to move up into the points, and once I had damage to the front wing our race was effectively over,” he explained.
“The gurney flap fell off halfway through and that cost us a lot of pace and worsening grip, so we then lost the ability to make a positive strategy call that would benefit us.”
Tsunoda has scored points just three times since joining Red Bull.
Ninth in the Bahrain GP is his best result for the team so far.
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