{"id":868358,"date":"2026-08-23T08:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T08:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/868358\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T08:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T08:46:11","slug":"yuki-tsunoda-racing-bulls-is-pretty-impressed-with-my-performance-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/868358\/","title":{"rendered":"Yuki Tsunoda: Racing Bulls is \u201cpretty impressed\u201d with my performance so far"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yuki Tsunoda<\/a> says Racing Bulls<\/a> has been \u201cpretty impressed\u201d with the way he has adapted to Formula 1\u2019s 2026-spec machinery as he stands in for Liam Lawson<\/a> at the Dutch Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Lawson got a call-up to Red Bull after Isack Hadjar<\/a> injured his wrist over the summer break, hence Tsunoda\u2019s opportunity at Racing Bulls on a tricky sprint weekend in Zandvoort.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old was unfamiliar with the new generation of cars but has been getting closer and closer to impressive rookie team-mate Arvid Lindblad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tsunoda was 0.825s adrift of the Briton in the only free practice session, but brought his deficit down to 0.433s in SQ1 and 0.360s in SQ2, then 0.011s in Q1 and 0.102s in Q2, having finished the sprint race 11.5 seconds in arrears.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I’m super happy,\u201d the Japanese racer rejoiced. \u201cCertainly, I enjoyed so much this qualifying.<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday’s qualifying was okay, but I didn’t know where was the limit still, it was still a fresh car. But this qualifying was a bit more like a proper qualifying, able to trust more the car and throw the car into the corners.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know where I can improve much more. But honestly, I missed this kind of feeling, the chasing last few milliseconds, last few tenths, and I’m super enjoying it, super enjoying it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Yuki <\/p>\n

Yuki Tsunoda, Racing Bulls<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bloxham \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

F1\u2019s new machinery requires sophisticated energy management on top of the revamped chassis and aero, and Tsunoda doesn\u2019t shy away from the fact this has been a substantial challenge in many areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a different car, it’s a completely different car,\u201d he said. \u201cThe brake feeling, you know? I stepped into the VCARB simulator, and the first thing I felt, when I braked like last year, I was in the wall!<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amount of pressure, those limits, it’s different. And downforce especially is also different. Also deploying energy, where to discharge and everything, suddenly you get deceleration from the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose things, it was not easy to adapt. Honestly, a lot of things I have to get up to speed [with], but to be honest I was able to get used to it faster than I expected. So, I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sprint race was useful for the Racing Bulls driver to get to grips with the start procedure while taking in invaluable experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat 24 laps, every single lap I was able to learn, and I think I was able to prove that in this qualifying, every single session I was coming closer and closer,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

And while Q3 eluded him by a tenth, Tsunoda reckoned the squad was (presumably) still happy with his performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team obviously wanted both cars to be in Q3,\u201d he admitted, having taken 12th place on the grid. \u201cBut from yesterday, they were pretty impressed with what I’ve done and pretty happy with the steps I’ve done for each session, every lap. It would have been better, obviously, if I got through Q3 today.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I didn’t meet the team yet, so maybe they’re angry, I don’t know, we’ll see,\u201d Tsunoda quipped.<\/p>\n

We want your opinion!<\/p>\n

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?<\/p>\n

Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n

– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yuki Tsunoda says Racing Bulls has been \u201cpretty impressed\u201d with the way he has adapted to Formula 1\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,48037,578,576,577,3015,82,3029,301599,59857],"class_list":["post-868358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dutch-gp","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-racing-bulls","tag-sports","tag-yuki-tsunoda","tag-yuki-tsunoda-racing-bulls-is-u201cpretty-impressedu201d-with-my-performance-so-far","tag-zandvoort"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}