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Yuki Tsunoda says Racing Bulls has been “pretty impressed” by how quickly he has adapted to Formula 1’s 2026-spec machinery after stepping in for Liam Lawson at the Dutch Grand Prix.
Lawson was called up to Red Bull after Isack Hadjar injured his wrist over the summer break, creating an unexpected opportunity for Tsunoda at Racing Bulls during a demanding sprint weekend. The Japanese driver arrived unfamiliar with the new-generation car, but steadily reduced the gap to impressive rookie team-mate Arvid Lindblad.
Tsunoda was 0.825 seconds behind Lindblad in the only free practice session. That deficit fell to 0.433s in SQ1 and 0.360s in SQ2 before narrowing further to 0.011s in Q1 and 0.102s in Q2. He had finished the sprint race 11.5 seconds behind his team-mate, but used the 24-lap contest to build experience and refine his understanding of the car.
The progress came against the backdrop of a major technical challenge. As Tsunoda’s last-minute Racing Bulls return showed, the weekend demanded rapid adaptation rather than a conventional build-up.
Tsunoda described the 2026 car as “completely different”, pointing specifically to its braking response, downforce and energy deployment. He said the limits were sufficiently unfamiliar that braking as he had the previous year would have sent him into the wall in the VCARB simulator.
“The amount of pressure, those limits, it's different,” Tsunoda explained. “Also deploying energy, where to discharge and everything, suddenly you get deceleration from the car.”
Despite the complexity, he said he had become comfortable with the car faster than expected. The sprint was particularly valuable because every lap provided another opportunity to understand the start procedure and the machinery.
“That 24 laps, every single lap I was able to learn,” he said. “I think I was able to prove that in this qualifying, every single session I was coming closer and closer.”
Tsunoda ultimately missed Q3 by around a tenth and will start 12th, while Racing Bulls had hoped to place both cars in the final qualifying segment. Even so, he said the team had been happy with the steps made across each session—although he joked that he had yet to discover whether the squad was still pleased after the result.
“Honestly, I'm super happy,” Tsunoda said. “I missed this kind of feeling—the chasing last few milliseconds, last few tenths—and I'm super enjoying it.”
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.