Yuki Tsunoda is confident about the future of Visa Cash App RB after an excellent weekend in Miami. In fact, the Japanese thinks that it may even be possible for Red Bull Racing’s sister team to join the five best teams on the grid. The 23-year-old driver explains what he bases this on.
Overall, Tsunoda is having a very strong season. The Japanese not only manages to qualify for Q3 with some regularity, but he has also managed to collect fourteen points in the races. Last weekend he even finished seventh in the main race in Miami, putting the RB driver ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell and Aston Martin leader Fernando Alonso. After a poor race in China, this was a huge boost for Tsunoda.
“I had almost forgotten about China,” Tsunoda told Motorsport.com. ‘It’s a race I don’t like to remind myself of, but in every race so far we’ve been around P10. We score points in most races and recently it has not only been about P10, but even P8, P9, P7 and P4’, Tsunoda points out the upward trend in his team’s performance.
Joining the top five
The racing team from Faenza has made a lot of progress and that gives Tsunoda a lot of confidence. “Of course it’s not yet at the level of Mercedes, but today (Sunday) I was able to keep up with the pace and was even faster than one of the Mercedes,” he said, referring to Russell, who finished one position behind him. ‘If we keep going like this, we might be able to catch up with the top five. You never know. That is also our goal for now.’
Tsunoda was surprised to see that his pace in the closing stages of the Miami Grand Prix was not much inferior to that of some top teams. ‘In the last stint the difference in pace was not that big compared to Ferrari or McLaren. It was not possible for us to show this before. So it shows that we are pushing, especially the people working in the background. We are making very rapid progress this year. Daniel (Ricciardo, ed.), for example, already took P4. It shows how much speed we have in the car now.’
Tsunoda wants to shine at Imola
The next appointment for the teams and drivers is at the Imola circuit, where the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix will be held. Last year the area was ravaged by heavy flooding and therefore the race could not take place at the time. Tsunoda, who considers the area his second home, hopes to be able to offer the hard-hit population a great race. ‘I love the circuit and it is also one of the home circuits for us. It is also my second home. It’s a shame we couldn’t race there last year due to the floods in Emilia-Romagna. Hopefully we can put on a good race for the people who had a hard time last year,” said Tsunoda.
