SUZUKA, Japan — Yuki Tsunoda said he felt “very sad” after his qualifying debut with Red Bull unraveled on Saturday, leaving him 14th on the grid for Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix.
Tsunoda was promoted to Red Bull ahead of his home race after Liam Lawson struggled at the opening two grands prix of the season and the team decided to replace him.
The Japanese driver appeared to be making good progress during the three practice sessions ahead of qualifying, but said his preparation lap ahead of his final attempt in Q2 ultimately let him down.
“I think the warm-up didn’t go as I wanted,” Tsunoda explained. “I’m still learning the warm-up.
“I thought it was okay. I knew it was maybe a little bit compromised, but the penalty was pretty big. A shame that I wasn’t able to extract the performance from the car. I think I was looking good from Q1 and everything. It just felt like overall worse and worse throughout. A shame.
“At least the confidence in the car feels good now. I just wasn’t able to put it all together today. Very sad.”
Tsunoda said windy conditions also forced an error early in the lap, but, unlike Lawson, he was feeling confident the handling of the car.
“I had quite a big gusts in Turn 2 — quite big moments I had — which were a bit unexpected,” he added. “So I had to look through what’s happened there, but at least I saw a good pace in Q1, and I feel like I have confidence in the car.
“I’m still learning in the process, I’m learning, but yeah, it’s a shame. I didn’t expect this result today.”
Source: espn.com