A last-minute effort by Red Bull to get its latest floor on Yuki Tsunoda's car before qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix proved to be the catalyst for his best Formula 1 grid position since he moved to the team.
After a long upgrade offset run compared to team-mate Max Verstappen, which was initially triggered by his sizeable Q1 crash at Imola in May, Tsunoda was given a boost on Saturday afternoon when Red Bull elected to fit its newest floor to his RB21.
And while his overall package is still not identical to Verstappen's in all components, such as the rear wing, the sizeable boost from the floor - believed to be worth around 0.3-0.4 seconds - did the job in finally allowing Tsunoda to show the pace that Red Bull has always felt he had within him.
His seventh place on the grid was secured with his first appearance in Q3 since the Miami GP at the start of May, and was bettered only by his fifth-place starting spot for the Australian GP season opener while he was driving for Racing Bulls.
Tsunoda said that the difference in floor specification was noticeable as he finally felt capable of pushing harder.
"There was a bit more grip," he said. "We saw already on the paper how much [potential] difference we had, since the difference I've had in terms of delta laptime between Max and myself wasn't that huge.
"So I knew already in myself, also our engineering group, that we are in the right direction for myself to improve in the way we want.
"I'm happy that I proved it. In general, [there is] a bit more grip. It was just the previous one was a bit more sensitive with anything.
"Once you slide, it just never recovered, and this one a bit more you can handle. You can be aggressive with it."
While the qualifying step forward was good news in itself, the talk of the floor making the car less sensitive to sliding could prove a good omen for the races, where Tsunoda has admitted to being a bit lost at times with excessive tyre degradation.
Even in the sprint race at Spa on Saturday, where he ran the old floor, he said he had no answer as to why an approach to tyre management that had worked all the way through his career was always failing in the Red Bull.
"It doesn't really stack up with the management I'm doing versus the pace I'm having, to be honest," he said after the sprint.
"Usually, or for the last four years, I know what I'm doing, and the kind of approach I'm having in my mind, it works pretty well. But suddenly, since I joined this Red Bull, I'm currently struggling. It doesn't really stack up, especially today."
Asked by The Race after qualifying if the new floor could help him overcome this problem, Tsunoda said: "This is another story - so thanks for reminding! But let's see in the race.
"Tomorrow seems like it's going to be a bit of a different story for the rain, but we definitely have to find out."
