Yuki Tsunoda's hopes of unlocking the answers he needs to turnaround his lack of form have received a timely boost this week with a double Formula 1 test for Red Bull.
After a Spanish Grand Prix weekend where Tsunoda was left baffled as to why he ended up last on the grid, he has finally had the opportunity to get some valuable test running with his squad with a two-day run at Barcelona.
And the timing could not be better, with it happening at a track where he raced at the weekend and that exposed some serious doubts about where he is at with his current car.
As he said last weekend: "This grand prix somehow [the pace] just drops massively for whatever reason, and I'm not able to show my performance which is a shame.
"It's something that for this grand prix I feel is really, really strange."
Tsunoda is taking part in a run in Red Bull's 2026 rules mule car (a modified version of the team’s 2023 RB19 design) for the second day of a Pirelli test aimed at developing tyres for next year's all-new regulations.
The Race has learned that he also had a day of Testing of Previous Car (TPC) running at Barcelona on Tuesday in the same RB19 to a different specification as Red Bull aimed to make the most of being at the venue.
Silverstone washout
Back in April, Red Bull had arranged for Tsunoda to have a day of TPC running in that car at Silverstone in its efforts to help him unlock some set-up secrets and understand better the characteristics of the squad's current ground effect challengers.
However, poor weather severely limited his running - as Red Bull did not want to burn through Tsunoda's annual TPC mileage on a damp track in case another opportunity cropped up.
And that chance has come this week, with Red Bull having been scheduled to join Pirelli's 2026 development test alongside Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli on Wednesday.
Red Bull felt that as its car and team present were already staying on at Barcelona, it made sense to use up on its TPC days the day before the mule car test.
The benefit of the freedom that TPC testing allows - in giving Tsunoda the ability to experiment with set-ups - would deliver some value that is not possible with the 2026 evaluation programme.
The testing of mule cars is covered by Formula 1's sporting regulations and there are restrictions geared towards ensuring teams do not gain any benefits for their current campaigns.
One of the stipulations is that "No test parts, test software or component changes will be permitted which give any sort of information to the competitor that is unrelated to the mule car test, unless specifically requested by the FIA."
Furthermore, changing set-ups is also heavily restricted .
The rules are clear that for the mule car test: "Mechanical set-up changes and driver control changes are only permitted if they are necessary for the correct evaluation of the test items or to complete the test programme. These changes must be agreed in advance with the FIA and the tyre supplier if tyre testing is to be carried out."
Tsunoda was open at the Spanish GP about still struggling to get fully on top of his current RB21.
"In qualifying the last few tenths is about being able to extract more with track evolution and [wing] flap [change]," he said. "Even within the qualifying, the track conditions change and with that, I'm still trying to find the limit.
"In my previous car, in VCARB, obviously I know what's happening in the background, how the car was. I could push flat out.
"I am not fully trusting yet about this car. And those few milliseconds, few tenths [that are missing] are quite important."
