“I think the pace was there”: Did Tsunoda’s race justify Red Bull’s Lawson swap?

Liam Lawson’s nightmare dismissal from Red Bull following just two appearances for him handed a dream debut to the man who replaced him.

An abundance of goodwill greeted Yuki Tsunoda as Red Bull finally handed him an opportunity many felt he should have had in the first place. Plus, the timing could hardly have been better: Japan’s only Formula 1 driver made his debut for the top team at his home race in a car carrying a tribute livery in honour of their engine supplier and his long-term backer, Honda.

On Sunday, Max Verstappen carried the car to a superb victory, one of his best, as he kept the clearly faster McLarens behind all day. Tsunoda came in 58 seconds behind, out of the points.

There was little to shout about this result, on the face of it. Tsunoda only finished six seconds closer to Verstappen than Lawson did on his last outing for Red Bull. Had Tsunoda really done well enough to justify Red Bull showing Lawson the door so soon?

Taking the weekend as a whole, there is more cause to be encouraged about Tsunoda’s performance. He got off to a good start in first practice, lapping little more than a tenth of a second off Verstappen.

Although he was almost two seconds behind in Friday’s later session, this was no cause for alarm, as a series of disruptions had prevented Tsunoda from completing a representative qualifying simulation lap. However that lost time hurt him when crunch time came on Saturday.

In Q1 he matched Verstappen’s best time to within three-hundredths of a second after a similar number of runs. But while Verstappen found nearly half a second in Q2, Tsunoda was unable to improve his time, which he blamed on failing to prepare his tyres properly beforehand. He dropped out in the second round, almost half a second off Verstappen, and beaten by both drivers from his former team, including Lawson.

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This left Tsunoda at a serious disadvantage for a race in which overtaking proved far more difficult than it had been in China two weeks earlier. Although he pounced on a mistake by Lawson on the first lap, Tsunoda only gained one further place, thanks to a slow pit stop for Pierre Gasly.

In China, Lawson started from the pit lane having made drastic set-up changes in a bid to master the tyre problems he was suffering. It was to no avail, and even when he ran in free air his lap times dropped off quickly.

In contrast, Tsunoda never had the benefit of free air during yesterday’s race. He spent the first stint stuck behind Gasly and the second in Fernando Alonso’s wheeltracks. In common with virtually every other driver on the grid, he simply couldn’t get close enough in the wake of either driver to mount an attack.

The raw numbers of Tsunoda’s first result alongside Verstappen do not make for encouraging reading. But there’s plenty of cause to believe he’s started off at a higher level than Lawson. As Tsunoda acknowledged after the race, the crucial factor this weekend will be whether he can qualify closer to Verstappen.

Tsunoda’s Japanese Grand Prix radio messages

Stint 1: Medium
Stint 2: Hard
Finish

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Stint 1: Medium

Tsunoda picked up one place immediately after the start then set about trying to attack Gasly. He had difficulty getting within DRS range, however, and asked his race engineer Richard Wood to clarify where the detection point was in the final chicane.

As he prepared to switch from the medium rubber to hards at his pit stop, Tsunoda told his team he would potentially like more front wing angle, but only if he was likely to emerge in clear air. That was a luxury few drivers enjoyed at Suzuka.

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Stint 2: Hard

Tsunoda got a late call to “box opposite” Gasly – i.e. only pit if he did not – and came in. Gasly pitted on the following lap and a slow tyre meant Tsunoda easily gained the place. Now he was stuck behind Alonso.

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Red Bull suggested various settings changes for Tsunoda as he tried to attack Alonso. But he told his team the turbulence from the Aston Martin made it too difficult to get close.

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Finish

Over the final laps Red Bull gave Tsunoda the benefit of a more powerful engine mode for periods during the final laps. But it was all for naught.