It’s been 3 weeks since the last Formula One race, and the last time we saw Yuki Tsunoda on track he had finished the São Paulo Grand Prix in P7 ahead of the Las Vegas GP.
Unfortunately for the Visa CashApp RB driver, practice was incredibly difficult as the team lacked pace and suffered with graining in the cold weather. They were the slowest cars in FP1.
However, throughout the weekend, minor improvements were definitely made as evident from his improved P10 position in second practice.
The final session was cut short due to a red flag brought out by Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll who experienced a technical issue.
The progress continued and it showed in the results, where the Japanese driver qualified P7 with a time of a 1:33.029, which was 0.717s slower than polesitter, Mercedes’ George Russell.
Recovering from a difficult start
Tsunoda commented on the progress that they made from Thursday to Friday at the Las Vegas GP, as well as discussing the rear suspension upgrade.
“It started pretty rough for ourselves.
“You know, I started P19 in FP1. Actually, we were able to turn around the race week so far. Session by session we were able to improve.
“I mean, it’s hard to say with the upgrades, if it’s working or not, but I assume it’s working.
“But it’s just hard to adapt to the set-up. We were exploring around throughout the sessions, and I think kind of FP2, FP3, we started to know what direction we have to take.
“And yeah, I think the good thing was we understood the upgrades, how it was working, and we were able to adapt quickly.”
Another form of encouragement for the 24-year-old and his team came from how close they qualified to the McLarens.
The Woking-based team has generally had the fastest car since Miami, although they look a step behind Mercedes and Ferrari this weekend.
As he recalled how the team struggled around the Las Vegas GP circuit in 2023, Tsunoda mentioned how proud he is of how far they’ve come.
He even made sure to praise his former teammate Pierre Gasly, who qualified P3.
“Yeah, just very good encouragement, you know, for us.
“But pretty far from Mr. Pierre Gasly, that’s a bit of a surprise. He did really well, actually throughout the sessions, he was pretty consistent, and actually it’s not easy to do that at this kind of track.
“But at the same time, yeah, being close to the top teams, which is really, really good.
“And actually, we struggled a lot last year last year in Las Vegas.
“So yeah, we did really well.”
His qualifying speed and feedback
The Japanese driver was then asked about his confidence in qualifying and how he’s able to extract more out of the car than his teammate’s in the last couple of seasons.
He also mentioned giving feedback to the engineers, helping them improve the car with set-up tweaks.
“Yeah, I think this kind of street circuit, you need the confidence.
“Yeah, I think I was quite happy with how I built up throughout the sessions.
“And I think also how I started with the set-up, like, sim preparation, everything. It started probably towards me, I would say.
“And a lot of set-up changes we made. And what I had in terms of my opinions went the right way.
“So, I think it comes with a bit more experience as well. But also, actually, I am able to give pretty precise feedback to the engineers, so they can make the car better.”
Q3 lap
Tsunoda reflected on his Q3 run stating that he definitely could have done better, but it is very tricky due to the track surface.
Despite that, he is satisfied with the laps he had done, especially with the unexpected P7 result, ending up just 0.021s slower than Lando Norris.
“You know, there’s always some [time] there. But yeah, pretty much what it is, I would say.
“I mean I could have done a little bit better as well. But yeah, I mean, pretty happy with my lap, to be honest.
“And a lot of things have to be revised, but I would say P7 is not the result that we expected. We’ll take it.”
Battling Alpine and Haas
When asked about the possibility of an on track battle with Gasly, Tsunoda noted the danger of Nico Hülkenberg [P9] as Haas looked quite quick for most of the weekend around the Las Vegas GP venue.
5 points cover Alpine, Haas and RB heading into the race later.
“Yeah, hopefully we can attack Pierre. But also, we have to look behind as well, for Nico [Hülkenberg] especially.
“So yeah, I mean, it won’t be easy. Like I said, the pace itself is on edge. I wouldn’t say it’s great. So yeah, we have to do the maximum we can.
“And also, like in this kind of condition, anything can happen. Like last year, we saw there were a couple of Safety Cars as well.
“So, let’s see how it goes. So far, it’s in a good way.”
