Yuki Tsunoda out again in Q1: "I've had enough of this!"

(Motorsport-Total.com) - Red Bull remains essentially a one-man team at its home race in Austria. Max Verstappen still has to pull the team's chestnuts out of the fire, while the second car simply fills the field. Yuki Tsunoda's qualifying in Spielberg was nothing more than that.

The Japanese driver continued his misery, finishing only 18th on Saturday. This means that Tsunoda has been eliminated in Q1 three times in the last five qualifying sessions. The last time the Red Bull driver made it to Q3 was six races ago in Miami. And in his entire time with Red Bull, he has only achieved a single-digit starting position once: eighth place in Jeddah.

"It's really frustrating. I'm getting fed up with always starting from P18 or P19, whatever," Tsunoda said angrily after the Spielberg qualifying.

This time, the changed conditions played a role for the Japanese rider. "I couldn't adjust properly on the second attempt," he explains. "The first push felt good, but the second... The handling was completely different between the first and second attempts. That surprised me."

Tsunoda suddenly lost grip on the front axle and struggled with severe understeer, which he couldn't overcome. The RB21's narrow operating window struck again.

"I think Max said something similar in Q2, but he knows the car and how to handle it," says Tsunoda. "Even if there are differences between runs, he can adapt within a lap. I'm not at the level yet where I can do that to the same extent. I was better at VCARB—and I'm just not there yet."

Marko: Car very toxic at the limit

Red Bull's motorsport consultant Helmut Marko also confirms this assessment. He told ORF that Tsunoda was "somewhat within the limits" on his first attempt. "That would have been enough, even for Q3. But Yuki is simply having a much harder time dealing with the changed conditions," the Austrian said. "Max can overpower that."

"But the main problem is that our car has too narrow a working window and is also very, very aggressive at the limit. We've seen that," said Marko. At McLaren, the drivers can easily correct swerves, "but with us, it's always a balancing act between flying off the track and not flying off the track."

Before qualifying, Tsunoda had expected "at least Q3," as he finished in the top 10 on Friday and in practice on Saturday. "The car feels good, and the first run was very good," he says. "But somehow..."

"I think I'm on the right track with my confidence. Also in terms of approach and progress. But with a car like this, with an extremely narrow window of opportunity, you just need consistency," he says. "However, I just can't seem to get it right in qualifying – for various reasons. It's really frustrating."

More softs are not an advantage...

The question is what he can achieve from 18th place on the grid. He hasn't ruled out a pit lane start and a setup change. Normally, having more tires on hand is also an advantage, but that's not necessarily the case in Spielberg.

"It's just softs – no mediums or hards," says Tsunoda. "I think those are the tires the others will mainly use – me too. We'll see if we can do an alternative strategy, but it's not necessarily an advantage to have a lot of softs left over."

His hope is on the actually good pace, which was "as good as ever," just like his understanding of the car. "But in the long run, it's a completely different story—with the dirty air and all. No matter what kind of car you have, it's difficult. Let's see what we can do. I'll do my best to score points."

It would be the first time since Imola.