Verstappen delivers first Tsunoda verdict after opening RB21 stint

Yuki Tsunoda impressed Max Verstappen in his first day driving the Red Bull RB21 at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Tsunoda would hit the ground running with an FP1 performance which put him right on Verstappen’s tail, before Jack Doohan, Fernando Alonso and grass fires meant FP2 was not a very representative session for anyone.

Verstappen: Tsunoda ‘started off really well’ in Red Bull RB21

It may only be the third race weekend of F1 2025, but Verstappen already has a new team-mate with Tsunoda in for Liam Lawson, who had spent his time with Red Bull largely running at the back, including qualifying last for the China sprint and Grand Prix, which proved his last act at the wheel before being sent back to Racing Bulls.

Tsunoda came the other way as the next driver to take on the Verstappen challenge, and despite being reluctant to ask Verstappen for any advice on the Red Bull machinery, and Verstappen reluctant to give it, Tsunoda made a strong start to life driving the RB21.

In the opening practice session at the Japanese Grand Prix – Tsunoda’s home race – he would end the session just a tenth down on Verstappen, while FP2 was a story of red flag stoppages with Jack Doohan suffering a high-impact crash, Fernando Alonso spinning into the gravel and several grass fires igniting.

That meant Tsunoda was unable to put in a qualifying simulation.

And speaking after the Friday running, Verstappen offered his first verdict on what Tsunoda has produced.

“I think Yuki started off really well today,” Verstappen declared, “even though FP1 and FP2 was very chaotic for everyone.”

Verstappen explained that Friday was a day of experimenting for him in the RB21, with Red Bull having called an emergency meeting ahead of the race weekend to discuss an underwhelming start to F1 2025, tackling Verstappen’s thoughts on their new car having been high on the agenda.

However, with many of those experiments not “clicking” as much as Verstappen had hoped, precious time was lost due to the FP2 red flag interruptions, four in total.

“Of course, it was quite chaotic out there for everyone with the red flags so, like everyone else, we couldn’t complete what we wanted to do,” said Verstappen.

“This meant that today has been quite difficult for us as we were trying different things in the car and a lot of things weren’t clicking as much as we would have liked.

“It is quite difficult to put the lap down: you need quite a lot of confidence and commitment around here and, at the moment, I feel like I still have a bit of work to do.

“I was on the soft tyre, which requires a lot of management, and you can’t really push it so I only got about three laps at the end which wasn’t a great read.

“Tomorrow in FP3 we can hopefully have a bit of a longer run, but overall, it hasn’t been an easy day.”

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On Thursday, Tsunoda has said that he was not experiencing the “trickiness” of the RB21 mentioned by previous drivers after putting in two days of simulator work, ahead of his big Red Bull debut in front of his home fans.

But, after he swapped the sim for the real deal, that started to change.

“FP1 was better than expected. A good start for myself,” Tsunoda reflected. “In FP2, I didn’t set a lap time.

“I think there is a lot of work to do, maybe slightly struggled or something that we have to look through the data in FP2 more, but so far overall it’s okay. I just have to build up my confidence more.

“It’s a bit different to the simulator from what I felt, to be honest.

“A little bit more than I expected in terms of the car feeling. I knew anyway it was always going to be a bit different in the real car, and it was a little bit more exaggerated in the real car. It’s feeling a bit more tricky.

“I think we can say today was okay, but it could have been better. FP1 was better than FP2, I gained a lot more learnings. We didn’t set a lap time in FP2 due to the number of stops in the session, you could maybe call the session a shambles for everyone. Overall, it is okay, and I am happy to have confidence in the car.

“We still have some work to do, and we have a lot to explore in the data before tomorrow.”