{"id":21645,"date":"2025-07-25T01:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T01:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/21645\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T01:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T01:42:08","slug":"tsunodas-car-still-a-couple-of-steps-behind-verstappens-at-belgian-grand-prix-%c2%b7-racefans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/21645\/","title":{"rendered":"Tsunoda&#8217;s car &#8216;still a couple of steps&#8217; behind Verstappen&#8217;s at Belgian Grand Prix \u00b7 RaceFans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/yuki-tsunoda\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yuki Tsunoda<\/a> will continue to drive an older specification of Red Bull\u2019s car than team mate Max Verstappen this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI got informed yesterday we will stick to the same package as [before],\u201d he told the official Formula 1 channel ahead of this weekend\u2019s race at <a title=\"Spa-Francorchamps\" href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/f1-information\/going-to-a-race\/spa-francorchamps-circuit-information\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spa-Francorchamps<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Tsunoda confirmed his RB21 is \u201ca couple of steps behind, still\u201d compared to the version Verstappen will race.<\/p>\n<p>Red Bull has introduced a series of updates to its car in recent races. However Tsunoda sustained heavy damage to one chassis when he crashed heavily during qualifying at Imola and subsequently fell behind Verstappen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not ideal but the team is working hard to get the package or deliver the package as soon as possible,\u201d he said. \u201cEspecially in this kind of tight field it would be nice. But the team knows it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tsunoda has had a poor run of results in recent races. He has scored no points over the last five rounds and qualified no higher than 11th.<\/p>\n<p>This weekend he has been reunited with former Racing Bulls team principal Laurent Mekies, who has taken over the role previously held by Christian Horner at Red Bull. The pair last worked together at the Chinese Grand Prix, before Tsunoda moved from Racing Bulls to replace <a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/liam-lawson\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Liam Lawson<\/a> alongside Verstappen.<\/p>\n<p>Tsunoda says he and Mekies \u201calready have a really good relationship\u201d from their time at Red Bull\u2019s second F1 team. \u201cWe had a past [when] we worked together and I know exactly how he works and how much he can bring into our team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I\u2019m excited to work with him, obviously. I just entered the paddock with him and he was also excited and he said he missed me so that\u2019s very cute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-above-ad\">Advert | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/contribute-racefans\/racefans-supporter\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Miss nothing from RaceFans<\/p>\n<p>Get a daily email with all our latest stories &#8211; and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:<\/p>\n<p>2025 Belgian Grand Prix<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/tag\/2025-belgian-grand-prix\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Browse all 2025 Belgian Grand Prix articles<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yuki Tsunoda will continue to drive an older specification of Red Bull\u2019s car than team mate Max Verstappen&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[12703,1687,372,6537,3006,3803,101,56,54,55,7942],"class_list":{"0":"post-21645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-2025-belgian-grand-prix","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-max-verstappen","13":"tag-red-bull","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom","18":"tag-yuki-tsunoda"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}