Yuki Tsunoda said he is pleased with the start he has made at Red Bull as he heads into his third event with the team.

Last week in Bahrain he scored his first points since being drafted in as a replacement for the struggling Liam Lawson at round three.

“I’m happy with how I progressed in the last two races,” Tsunoda told the official F1 channel, saying it had gone “slightly better than I thought, probably.”

However he admitted he still has a lot to learn about how to get the most out of the RB21.

“[I’m] still in the process that I’m trying to understand about the car, how this car works in different tracks and different kinds of conditions,” he said. “These things will come with experience and time.

“But considering the two races I’m happy with the current shape in terms of confidence level. It’s quite up there. Obviously it’s not 100% perfect but it’s okay.”

Tsunoda was only 18th overall at the end of final practice last week but rebounded to reach Q3. He wants “to be slightly more consistent in free practice,” this weekend in Jeddah.

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“In the last two grands prix, I had a lot of up and down in free practice,” he said. “I had very tough practices in Bahrain.

“In some sessions there’s a big reason for it, but I think if I’m able to nail it down slightly more from the early stages, I’m just going to have more confidence. I’m also able to get extra performance from the car, probably better than how I did in qualifying, so that’s my target.”

He qualified further off the pace of his team mate than any other driver in Bahrain. Tsunoda said Max Verstappen’s years of experience with Red Bull’s cars, plus the extensive set-up changes the team make every weekend as they seek better performance from their car, makes it hard to get on terms with him.

“Probably Max knows much more [than] me about this car, so even though the car is not in the window that this car wants, he’s still able to extract performance slightly better than myself,” said Tsunoda. “That [makes] a lot different, obviously in qualifying, especially when it’s a really tight session.

“It’s not the easiest way to find this window that we want and especially in the last two grand prix, at least since I joined, we keep changing the downforce level and everything. Because of those things it’s not really ideal, and for the team also knowing as well because in the end as a driver we want to have a consistent balance as much as possible throughout the week.

“Obviously as a team we’re trying to solve this issue but it’s not the easiest [way] to solve these things. I’m sure there’s something planned, updates are coming in the coming races but let’s see. Hopefully things will get better [with] better confidence in the car.”

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