Yuki Tsunoda finished 12th at Suzuka meaning Red Bull’s second car still has yet to score a single point in 2025 despite Liam Lawson having been replaced by the Japanese racer
Helmut Marko still feels Yuki Tsunoda had a “good” debut weekend for Red Bull Racing despite his disappointing result. The 24-year-old finished his home race at the Japanese Grand Prix in 12th, two places higher than where he started in 14th.
Tsunoda’s weekend got off to a good start as he posted a time good enough for sixth place at the end of first practice. More pertinently, it was only one tenth of a second slower than the best effort managed by Max Verstappen, which is exactly how close Red Bull want their second driver to be.
But from that point their respective fortunes diverged. Verstappen produced a monster qualifying lap to take pole position and converted it into his first victory of the season by holding off the marauding McLarens that were behind him for the whole race.
In contrast, though Tsunoda did better than Liam Lawson had managed in qualifying by progressing from Q1, that was about as good as it got. The Japanese was 15th fastest in Q2, rose one place on the starting grid because of a penalty for Carlos Sainz and, like everyone else in a low-key affair, made little progress during the Grand Prix.
Lawson, who was relegated to the junior team Racing Bulls so Tsunoda could take his place, might have been feeling smug after out-qualifying his rival by one place. However, he went backwards in the race, losing four places and crossing the line 17th.
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Regarding Tsunoda’s overall performance, other than the error he made in qualifying, driver development chief Marko seemed satisfied with the Japanese’s debut with the main Red Bull team. He said: “It was good. It was just unlucky that in Q2 he had this mistake, but otherwise it was fine.”
The racer himself said that he too was pleased with how he had performed in the race. However, the lamented the fact he was not able to achieve more and score points in front of his home fans at Suzuka.
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Tsunoda said: “I’m happy with the race, in terms of my performance but, obviously, in terms of results, it’s quite tough, especially for my home Grand Prix. I was definitely expecting more, and you know, at least I wanted to finish in the points, so it’s mixed feelings.
“The 53, 54 laps I got in this race was the most laps I had in this car. Every lap I was learning and, finally, I got decent laps in the car and I definitely feel more confidence in the car. I just felt overall more controlled towards the end of the race.
“I’m happy considering the amount of time I had, but because of [it being my] home Grand Prix, I just wanted to finish in the points. I just have to build the pace. It’s fortunate that there’s Max that I can learn from, so I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing. I’m excited for Bahrain, actually.”
