Tsunoda: ‘Whatever I do, nothing happens – it doesn’t stack up’

Yuki Tsunoda endured a harrowing qualifying session at the Spanish Grand Prix, ending Saturday’s action dead last and utterly despondent about his chances of salvaging the weekend.

After showing encouraging results since replacing Liam Lawson at Red Bull, Tsunoda now finds himself grasping for answers – without even a clear path forward in sight.

The Japanese driver has been left bewildered by his RB21’s mystifying lack of pace, one that defies the usual logic of car setup and tyre management.

A Shocking Qualifying Collapse

Tsunoda’s woes were starkly evident in Q1, where he posted a dismal 1m13.385s, landing him dead last among the 20 runners – 0.25 seconds off the Q2 cut-off and a crushing half-second slower than teammate Max Verstappen’s second-place effort in the same session.

The result was a brutal validation of the struggles that plagued him throughout practice, where no tangible improvements materialized.

“Until the previous grand prix, especially Monaco, I was having good progress throughout,” Tsunoda lamented after qualifying.

“[In the] last grand prix, [in] some session I was matching or [I was] a bit faster than Max and suddenly it drops like hell.”

The contrast between his recent competitiveness and this weekend’s disaster has left him baffled, as if the car’s potential has evaporated overnight.

Tsunoda’s attempts to diagnose the issue have been futile, with the driver pointing to an undefined “core limitation” embedded deep down in the RB21.

“Whatever I do [nothing changes],” he added. “Every lap - even long run was a good example. Just whatever I do, nothing happens and it feels like this car is eating the tyres like hell, having degradation massively."

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“It doesn’t really stack up. I think the core limitation is still there and I don’t know what it is and I can’t really have any answer for that.”

The team’s own inability to pinpoint the root cause has only deepened the sense of crisis, as Tsunoda faces a race where progress seems increasingly out of reach.

No Setup Silver Bullet

Tsunoda was quick to shut down speculation that a poor setup might be at the heart of his struggles. The team, he said, has tried just about everything – and the underlying problem stubbornly persists.

“I don't think it's set-up because we tried every set-up,” he insisted.

“There's obviously some preference there, but I think I am still convinced that we're able to at least put it all together in terms of the car balance.

“Car balance itself is not bad and also my confidence was there. The lap in qualifying in both tyres, especially the last push, was pretty good. So it doesn't really stack up with my results and with the pace that I'm having.”

Tsunoda even asked the team to check the floor for damage during Q1, hoping for a mechanical explanation. But that avenue, too, turned up empty.

“I rode slightly more aggressively after the last corner, but I didn't go really crazy at all,” he explained.

“I didn't accept the level and saw multiple cars going there. So it's not like I damaged the car.”

A Bleak Outlook for Sunday

Starting from P20 at a track notoriously difficult for overtaking, Tsunoda appears resigned to a tough race. Despite his trademark determination, even he seemed to struggle to muster optimism for a turnaround.

“I'll try my best tomorrow. What I can do to be in top 10, I'll do,” he said.

“But the thing is I don't think we were able to cure the core limitation since F2, which was like really lap by lap just tyres degrading. So in that sense it will be tough realistically.

“But hopefully with a couple of set up changes we'll make it a little bit better. Other than that let's see how it goes.”

As drastic as the situation was after qualifying, Tsunoda didn’t believe breaking parc fermé to make major setup changes would deliver any meaningful gains – because the team still doesn’t know what’s wrong.

“As long as we find clear limitation or cause clear issues that we see in the car, I think we will take it,” he said.

“But even myself, I don't think there's much point in changing the set-up because we did almost everything.

“Exactly the same, just four wheels just sliding around so. We have to discuss but I can't see what kind of set-up will make the games change.”

Update: Red Bull has opted to change the rear wing specification on Tsunoda's RB21, which means a pitlane start for the Japanese driver, leaving just 18 cars on the grid following Lance Stroll's decision to pull out of the race for medical reasons.

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