Yuki Tsunoda said he was frustrated to be caught out by a change in his car’s handling which left him well behind his team mate in qualifying.
The gap between Tsunoda and Max Verstappen widened in qualifying for the second race in a row in Jeddah. Tsunoda’s best lap in Q3 was two tenths of a second slower than he had gone in Q2.
The Red Bull driver said he may have to accept feeling less comfortable in the car in order to extract the best possible lap time from it.
“It’s getting more comfortable, grand prix by grand prix,” he told the official F1 channel. “But I guess now just maybe to unlock the last few milliseconds or few tenths, it’s up to the set-up that probably I never tried.
“Maybe I get too comfortable with the car. I think what I experienced in FP1 in Suzuka wasn’t comfortable at all. Obviously, my first time in the car, the car was pretty nervous, but actually the lap time was okay.
“So I think I have to get something from that. I just maybe make the car too comfortable and I’m not able to squeeze the [lap] time that I want.”
The RB21’s unpredictability is still catching him out at times. “In this car, things just keep happening that I can’t predict,” said Tsunoda. “And on my last push lap in Q3 I had that kind of moment, which I never experienced.”
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“It always happens there when the lap time counts, so it’s pretty frustrating as well,” he added.
Tsunoda crashed during second practice yesterday. He said it is difficult to know how hard to push and how soon on a track like Jeddah where there is little room for error.
“The more I push something, new things are happening. And obviously at this kind of track you don’t want to push straight away 100% in free practice so it’s hard to build it up.
“How much pace you carry from FP1 is based on how much confidence you have in your car and experience. And currently I have much less than, obviously, my team mate.
“New things happen in Q3, when it counts, at the time that I want to put it all together. It’s not the happiest feeling to have, but I’ll just keep pushing.
Despite qualifying over nine tenths of a second slower than Verstappen this weekend, Tsunoda believes he is getting closer to his team mate’s performance.
“It’s getting closer and closer, it’s not going further and further, so I’ll take it and I won’t rush it and just keep doing what I’m doing.”
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