The sim test shows that the Red Bull F1 car suits me

Yuki Tsunoda says he needs to deliver outstanding performances in the final two races of the 2024 Formula 1 season to “force” Red Bull to consider him for a race seat – and that a simulator test has shown he is in the The team’s car can be fast.

Tsunoda is one of several drivers in the team replacing the ailing Sergio Perez, who currently sits eighth in the drivers’ standings when his teammate won the world championship last weekend.

Perez’s comparatively meager points haul – 152 to Max Verstappen’s 403 – has allowed both McLaren and Ferrari to overtake Red Bull in the constructors’ championship, which could cost the team tens of millions of dollars in prize money.

Tsunoda is one of several candidates who could replace him and before getting the recently confirmed opportunity to drive Red Bull’s 2024 car at the post-season test in Abu Dhabi, he completed a trial in the team’s simulator.

“I drove different tracks just to get used to the look of the Red Bull car,” he said. “It’s a pretty fast car.

“At least in the simulator it just feels different (to the RB) and it’s just great to drive, like the speed you can bring into the corner. And compared to our car, the curve is quite sharp.

“But it just feels great. Normally working on the simulator is more like work, right? But when I drove (a Red Bull), I felt that there was a pleasant feeling while driving.

“So I think, at least from what I have experienced so far in the simulator, that it is a car that will suit me. I actually think this car suits me well. So, yeah, it’s pretty good.”

Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team VCARB 01

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Since leaving Red Bull’s junior team in 2021, Tsunoda has been consistently overlooked in the promotion to the spot alongside Verstappen. He has frequently expressed frustration about this, despite having, in his words, “destroyed” more than one teammate.

The most recent RB driver to be dropped after failing to surpass Tsunoda was Daniel Ricciardo, a Grand Prix winner. And yet Ricciardo’s successor, Liam Lawson, is seen as just as strong a candidate as Tsunoda should Perez be ousted – and Red Bull bosses are apparently also looking outside the organisation’s youth pool.

Tsunoda has no illusions about what the post-season test means, despite having fought for it for so long.

“The way they see me from a Red Bull perspective so far this year, I feel like the test is just a test,” he said. “The next two races are definitely more important.

“I hope that the test will maybe give a little bit more, I guess, a better impression or a better picture of exactly how I’m doing as a driver. But I think the next two races are definitely more important to be in that mix when it comes to those seats.

“I honestly don’t know what else to do (to impress her). But I’m just going to keep going and these are things I can control. And these things, the Red Bull seat, they decide about it.”

Tsunoda’s RB team is one of three teams fighting for sixth place in the constructors’ championship and the Japanese driver has taken all but two of his 46 points this season.

Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

While final rankings have a significant impact on team revenue, the teams that typically compete for runners-up behind the top four teams are close together.

Fifth-placed Aston Martin is something of an outlier with 86 points, thanks largely to the efforts of Fernando Alonso. In the battle for sixth place, Haas and RB consistently picked up smaller points, but in small enough numbers that unusual race conditions had a significant effect – Alpine is now part of that group, especially with the unexpected double podium finish in the chaos of Brazil.

Tsunoda believes that in this context, his speed, and not RB’s final place in the standings, should be a deciding factor. He is also aware that behind-the-scenes politics across the Red Bull organization are contributing to uncertainty over who might replace Perez, if that happens at all.

“If they say, OK, P6 is the task you have to do to sit in the Red Bull seat – that’s pretty hard to say because the team championship is pooled between team riders and not just individual riders,” said he said. “But I will do as much as I can and if I can get P6 (for RB), hopefully that will be a better reason to put myself in a Red Bull spot.

“Maybe they’re facing difficult things in the background, different things that I probably don’t know. So yeah, I’ll just force them with my results or my performance so that (they say), “Oh, maybe we really need Yuki on our spot, otherwise things won’t change.”

“So, yeah, I just have to force them with my performance.”