Tsunoda’s Imola speed shows Red Bull is right to wait on Perez’s F1 future

On a weekend where Red Bull has had to adjust its ride height set-ups considerably to cope with the RB20’s ongoing dislike for kerbs, Perez’s crash late in FP3 meant Max Verstappen went into qualifying without any flying lap preparation on the soft tyres.

Although this didn’t ultimately prevent the Dutchman blitzing to pole, Perez also failed to progress to Q2 – blaming having to switch between used and new softs in Q2 for a costly Tosa hairpin mistake from which he couldn’t recover.

Tsunoda, meanwhile, finished third in FP2 and repeated that result in Q2. This raised expectations of what he could achieve ahead of the race at Imola, just 10 miles from the RB team’s Faenza base.

The Japanese driver is benefitting from this event’s typical GP weekend schedule compared to the previous two sprint events leaving him feeling calmer overall.

In the end in qualifying on Saturday, Tsunoda was left to reflect on a final Q3 lap where he “for sure could have done much better than that”, as he ended up seventh. He did, however, beat Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton.

“The team gave me such a nice car since FP1 and [I’ve been] feeling confident throughout the week,” he added. “Without that, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve this [result] on one set [of tyres] in Q2. Very happy and thanks to them.

“To be honest, I didn’t expect this much performance from the car, so it’s hard to tell. Normally we struggle in the high speed, but we see a big difference compared to the previous races compared to the top five teams.

“So, for sure something to understand properly for going forward – because, yeah, moments like this to be honest I didn’t expect. Maybe home race power?”

Tsunoda, speaking after qualifying at Imola, also hailed the progress made by the new staff at the former AlphaTauri squad in 2024. This includes team principal Laurent Mekies.

After the Miami race where RB added floor and diffuser upgrades to its VCARB 01 car and Tsunoda finished seventh in the GP, Mekies said he’s “made a huge step this year”.

At Red Bull’s main team and post-qualifying 11th at Imola, Perez explained: “Unfortunately, my first lap in Q1 wasn’t ideal.

“We thought we were not safe so we put another set of new tyres on and by doing that it basically meant I was on scrubbed tyres for my final run of quali.

“When I put the new tyre on in Q2, I picked up a lot of rear grip and I…