Formula 1: Everything got worse and worse, says Tsunoda on qualifying debut for Red Bull

Suzuka, April 5 (IANS) On the day his Red Bull teammate, Max Verstappen, grabbed an incredible pole, Yuki Tsunoda’s qualifying kept getting ‘worse and worse throughout as he was eliminated in Q2 at the Japanese GP qualifying.

The Japanese driver, making his debut for Red Bull at his home Grand Prix, was knocked out in P15—one place behind his predecessor, Liam Lawson. However, following Carlos Sainz's three-place grid penalty, both Tsunoda and Lawson have been promoted up the order and will start in P14 and P13, respectively, for Sunday's race.

“I think the warmup didn’t go as I wanted. I’m still learning. The warmup, how it ended up, I thought it was ok. I knew it was maybe going to be a bit compromised, but the penalty was pretty big.

“It’s a shame that I wasn’t able to extract the performance from the car. It was looking good from Q1, and it just felt that overall, everything got worse and worse throughout. A great shame. The confidence in the car at least feels good now, it’s just that I wasn’t able to put it all together today. Very sad,” said Tsunoda to Sky Sports F1.

Verstappen, on the other hand, pulled off a stunning late lap to take pole position for the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix, denying McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in a nail-biting finish at Suzuka Circuit.

Tsunoda further went on to reveal that despite the grand occasion of making his Red Bull debut in front of his home crowd, he did not feel too much pressure.

“Surprisingly, I feel ok in terms of pressure. The laps in Q2, the lap was probably the most pressured time out of the previous sessions.

"I felt it probably more last year than this year. This year, the mindset was probably more just to enjoy it and feel the car. At the same time, I had the pace from FP3, so I didn’t expect it to end up like this today,” he added.

--IANS

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