Yuki Tsunoda has had an interesting start to his time at Red Bull with a strange cycle of hope and failure. After a struggle-filled debut in Suzuka with flashes of promising pace, the Japanese driver did well in Bahrain despite Red Bull having a rather difficult weekend in terms of their car being on a knife’s edge.
Coming into the final race of this triple header in Saudi Arabia, Tsunoda has been ambitiously making statements about how he can catch up with Max Verstappen’s pace benchmark. “I know myself that I can’t beat him straight away, so I’m just trying to build a good baseline and wait for the moment that I can be in the shape,” he said per The Race.
However, the Jeddah Corniche Circuit has humbled Tsunoda, as the 24-year-old crashed out in the closing stages of FP2 on Friday night, bringing out the red flag and ending his running for the day. It was a hefty shunt for Tsunoda, as he clipped his left front wheel at the inside wall of the final corner—which seemingly damaged his suspension wishbone—and ended up in the barriers at the exit of the corner.
Now, such a crash would easily sap the confidence out of a young driver like Tsunoda. However, he seems to have taken this in his stride healthily.
“Confidence level is pretty good, last soft run was a bit compromised with the warm-up. I got limited time with the long runs caused by myself, so I can’t really complain about anything. I definitely would have wanted to end up in a nice way,” the #22 driver explained the circumstances leading up to his crash in FP2.
Heard from Tsunoda following FP2, he turned in to much and that lead to clipping the wall and breaking the steering.
“Confidence level is pretty good, last soft run was a bit compromised with the warm up. I got limited time with the long runs caused by myself so I can’t really…
— Tim Hauraney (@timhauraney) April 18, 2025
As Jeddah is a rather dangerous street circuit with the walls being so close and an abundance of fast-paced corners one after the other, Tsunoda will have to iron out such errors, heading into qualifying on Saturday.
On top of that, the Japanese driver will need to keep his nose clean in Sunday’s race as well if he wishes to score points again after opening his account for Red Bull in Bahrain last weekend. With a safety car featuring at each of the four Grands Prix in Jeddah, Tsunoda can look to capitalize on any incidents in the field to hook up a good result.
A costly moment for Yuki Tsunoda in FP2 #F1 #SaudiArabianGP pic.twitter.com/ofXpR5gG9q
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 18, 2025
Pace-wise, he has shown signs of being close to Verstappen around Jeddah. While he ended up three tenths off the Dutchman’s fastest lap time, the 24-year-old was matching his pace on multiple occasions with comparable lap times during FP2. If he can keep this up in qualifying, the Saudi Arabian GP could turn out to be a mightily positive race weekend for him.
