Yuki Tsunoda’s Q2 elimination and 11th place on the British Grand Prix grid was described by his Red Bull team boss Christian Horner as a “fantastic performance” akin to team-mate Max Verstappen’s pole lap.
Tsunoda failed to make it into the top 10 shootout, falling just over a tenth short and qualifying 12th-fastest, which becomes 11th on the grid after a penalty for Ollie Bearman.
As Verstappen went on to score an unlikely pole position, it presented another contrast between the two Red Bull drivers, as its four-time world champion continues to excel whenever the car allows it, while positionally Tsunoda struggled to get anywhere near.
However, Tsunoda’s weekend has hinted at a small but real step in one-lap performance, and Horner had some unexpectedly grand praise for his second driver given the result.
Having labelled Verstappen’s pole as “a tremendous performance”, Horner added: “Yuki equally put in a fantastic performance, but unfortunately got unlucky.
“There were some power issues at the start of his lap which compromised him somewhat.
“We will need to look into it, but he certainly has found something in the car.”
Tsunoda said his Q2 lap was “very clean” but he “lost power” starting the lap. After switching engine mode from recharge to full deployment before the final corner as he prepared to launch his decisive lap, “the power I normally get, I didn’t have it”.
Tsunoda claimed that cost him “one tenth [to] Turn 3” and felt there were also “a couple of acceleration boosts that were not working”.
“Considering that, the lap was pretty good, and how tight it was, I think most likely I was going through to Q3,” he said.
“So, really annoying.”
The evidence does support the claim that Tsunoda was good enough to be in Q3 here, which would have been a welcome mini-milestone given his recent run – only two Q2 appearances in five races, and a Q3 absence stretching back to Miami in early May.
He was not as quick as Verstappen at Silverstone, but was chipping away at the deficit. Half a second off in final practice, he was within four tenths in Q1, and had he completed his Q2 lap unhindered would probably have been three or four tenths slower. Considering this is one of the season’s longer laps, and he is carrying a small specification difference again with Verstappen on a new floor this weekend, Red Bull is quietly very pleased to have Tsunoda in that ballpark.
The Q2 lap compared very well with Verstappen until the end of the second sector. They were almost equal up to the middle of the Maggots and Becketts sequence, with Tsunoda making up the tenth or so he lost to Verstappen until Turn 3 with his unspecified power issue.
However, Tsunoda was slower out of Becketts and Chapel onto the Hangar Straight, and while some of that might be the lack of “boost” Tsunoda claimed he felt at other parts of the lap, not just the first few seconds of it, it seemed to be at least in part down to the two drivers.
Tsunoda held eighth gear for longer than Verstappen, who dropped down to seventh for the Becketts left-hander, using the extra rotation that provided to force the front end into the last of the sweeps just as they were giving up.
Verstappen’s smoother exit from Stowe gained him another tenth versus Tsunoda there, though, and Tsunoda dropped two tenths in the final complex - seemingly a result of just trying to carry too much speed into the first part, costing him with his minimum speed through the left and the right even though his run off the corner was actually strong.
Was this equally as impressive as Verstappen? No, clearly not. There was still quite a margin between them, so it was a hyperbolic assessment. But there are certainly signs of life for Tsunoda, who is “really happy with the progress I’ve had”.
“It’s the cleanest race weekend we've had so far,” he said. “The build up and the confidence and everything. The car feels good in qualifying.
“Every time there's something I get when it counts, it's annoying.”
Despite the disappointment of not making Q3, there is a clear expectation that Tsunoda will score points on Sunday. If so, he will end a four-race barren run. But to do that he will need to drive better than he did in Austria last week, where his race was messy and his tyre management was poor.
Tsunoda half-joked that “at least I'm not starting P18, [so] that helps” and he didn’t remember when he last scored points - it was at Imola in May - and that he needs to do so to “make the team happy”. But he admitted there is a slight question mark as he does not have a full answer for why Austria was so bad that he felt his tyres were “melting” and his pace deficit was “massive”.
“[It’s] not fully clear yet,” he said. “So it's still probably going to be a tough race tomorrow.
“I at least made a couple of steps. [After FP2] I know what to do better in the race as well. I still feel optimistic but I haven’t seen the full picture yet.
“At the same time, it's a couple of bits and bobs of it. I know there's something to come from the car as well in the coming races, let’s say. So let’s see.”
