The person himself frames it as destiny. After an usually irritating four-year F1 apprenticeship with Purple Bull’s junior crew, throughout which the prospect of promotion diminished after which appeared to fade totally, Yuki Tsunoda is now the place he thinks he all the time ought to have been.
Bother is, that’s what the motive force he’s changing thought. And the one earlier than him. And – rinse and repeat.
Being Max Verstappen’s team-mate is among the many hardest gigs in F1, particularly when coupled with the necessity to become familiar with a troublesome automobile. And, whereas the casualty record signifies that it’s the automobile which is the issue relatively than the folks driving it, the truth is the second driver will all the time carry the can if Verstappen is the one one racking up the factors.
Tsunoda’s job is to assist repair the automobile, bolster his team-mate’s drivers’ title ambitions, and reboot Purple Bull’s constructors’ championship marketing campaign. If he can’t try this, Purple Bull will substitute him with somebody who can.
To maintain his seat, then, he’ll need to do much more than simply permit crew principal Christian Horner to win at board video games…
1) Discover ways to get the RB21 ‘within the window’ – quick
Liam Lawson, Purple Bull Racing
Picture by: Purple Bull Content material Pool
When the flag drops, the you-know-what stops.
For all that Tsunoda has made assured noises about his expertise of the RB21 within the simulator, saying he “didn’t discover the automobile that troublesome to drive”, actuality is prone to current a stark distinction. Verstappen himself says the RB21 is bothersome – and Liam Lawson’s failure to wrangle outcomes from it’s the purpose for Tsunoda getting this chance within the first place.
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Each Verstappen and Lawson have spoken of the RB21’s painfully slim working ‘window’, of inconsistent stability adjustments from nook to nook, and of the problem in managing tyre efficiency given its penchant for snap oversteer. Whereas the engineering crew’s mandate with this automobile was to commerce off some peak efficiency to make it extra benign than its predecessor, the expertise of the primary two grands prix this season suggests its peak stays difficult to entry.
Sergio Perez, ejected final yr in favour of Lawson, would often clarify that as he made the RB20 extra “snug” – i.e. much less edgy – to drive, he would turn out to be slower. What Verstappen can do, and his number-twos haven’t, is lean on the entrance axle progressively sufficient by corners to keep away from scary the rear – and in the event you have a look at his in-car footage from any given monitor session you’ll see even he doesn’t get it proper each time.
It was the shortage of consistency from one nook to the following, and that tendency to snap into oversteer with no warning growl if the motive force turned in barely too aggressively, which killed Perez’s confidence and did the identical to Lawson. If a four-time world champion is discovering a automobile a handful, pity the merely bizarre driver within the storage subsequent door.
For that reason, it’s incorrect to count on Tsunoda to be quicker than Lawson simply because he achieved higher ends in the Racing Bulls automobile in Australia and China. And incorrect, bordering on fatuous, to conclude that the RB21 is one way or the other inferior and depends upon Verstappen magic to run at or close to the entrance.
Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Workforce
Picture by: Purple Bull Content material Pool
Racing Bulls has a extra benign automobile whose efficiency peaks are due to this fact simpler to entry; it’s clear from Verstappen’s velocity by demanding corners that the RB21 has extra downforce. Purple Bull’s downside is that solely he can find the candy spot.
The Chinese language Grand Prix revealed one other troublesome quirk. Setting apart Lawson’s depressing race – he was making an attempt a ‘radical’ set-up change which made the automobile even worse – Verstappen was a completely nameless presence within the opening stint, falling off the main group.
The RB21 got here alive on the C2s used for the primary time in his second stint. It’s common for vehicles to reply otherwise to an alternate compound, however this was a marked reversal.
All in all, Tsunoda has loads to study in a really brief area of time. “My precedence is to first perceive the automobile, the way it behaves in comparison with the VCARB,” he stated final weekend. “If I can naturally get pleasure from driving it as I get accustomed to it in FP1, then the outcomes will comply with.”
Seldom has using the phrase “if” come freighted with so many assumptions. He can’t afford to underestimate the magnitude of the problem he faces.
2) Handle expectations
Yuki Tsunoda on the Purple Bull Showrun Taichung
Picture by: Purple Bull Content material Pool
Floating the opportunity of ending on the rostrum in his first race with Purple Bull was maybe not the wisest plan of action Tsunoda has undertaken. Naturally there will likely be an excessive amount of scrutiny and expectation attending his maiden race outing for Purple Bull in Japan this weekend – however, given the destiny of his predecessors, he would do nicely to handle these expectations relatively than inflate them.
It is stated that you may’t polish a turd, however you possibly can roll it in glitter. This, in a nutshell, is Tsunoda’s mission at Purple Bull – the crew’s senior stakeholders felt that his higher F1 expertise relative to Lawson’s may show useful in debugging the RB21.
You may ignore the platitudinous cant about Lawson’s welfare in final week’s assertion from crew boss Christian Horner. Purple Bull isn’t a crew which throws a comforting arm across the shoulder of a struggling driver – it’s one of the hard-headed organisations on the grid.
Tsunoda has been moved throughout to do a job and his public pronouncements must mirror that. A number of the quotes attributed to Lawson over the low season made him sound a little bit cocky and Tsunoda can – ought to – study from the velocity with which Lawson’s confidence departed.
Helmut Marko has stated Tsunoda is in for the remainder of the season. That’s fairly a press release from the person whose fingers are normally the itchiest on the set off.
Lawson wasn’t given the time he wanted to adapt to the automobile. Clearly the crew felt this level lay too far sooner or later for its liking, therefore his fast firing.
What Tsunoda must do is be life like concerning the timescales concerned – each in his public pronouncements and behind closed doorways – and guarantee his targets are particular, measurable and attainable.
3) Construct a working relationship together with his new race engineer
Engineer Richard Wooden alongside Sergio Perez in 2024
Picture by: Purple Bull Content material Pool
The well-documented challenges of discovering a workable set-up for the RB21 place extra emphasis on what’s already an essential consider automobile efficiency: the connection between the motive force and their race engineer. Purple Bull has confirmed to Motorsport.com that Tsunoda will likely be working with Richard Wooden, who stepped up this yr after working as Perez’s efficiency engineer.
Though Wooden is comparatively new to the position, he was not seen as a part of Lawson’s downside. As a longtime aspect of the Purple Bull set-up, he’ll be capable to assist Tsunoda adapt to the best way the crew operates.
As evinced by the brouhaha surrounding Lewis Hamilton’s radio exchanges together with his new Ferrari race engineer Riccardo Adami, it will probably take time for the connection to gel, and for every of the events to grasp what the opposite desires and the best way to talk it. However Tsunoda has current expertise of change on this division – his long-time engineer Mattia Spini was promoted final summer time and changed as Tsunoda’s engineer by Ernesto Desiderio.
4) Know when to maintain his mouth shut
Yuki Tsunoda on the Purple Bull Showrun Taichung
Picture by: Purple Bull Content material Pool
It’s understood that Lawson’s fast proximity to Tsunoda’s tempo when he changed Daniel Ricciardo at Purple Bull’s junior crew late final yr was what swung the choice to fit him into the seat vacated by Perez. Purple Bull administration’s perception on the time was that he had extra scope for enchancment than Tsunoda and was extra mentally resilient.
The favored view that Tsunoda’s tendency to throw tantrums over the crew radio was the rationale for overlooking him just isn’t fairly correct. However his occasional shoutiness did contribute to the general notion of Lawson because the extra strong candidate.
Groups will (albeit grudgingly) settle for diva behaviour – however solely from drivers who’re delivering the products. Or these whose fathers personal the crew.
If Tsunoda goes to be truculent at instances, he must earn the suitable to take action.
On this article
Stuart Codling
System 1
Yuki Tsunoda
Purple Bull Racing
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