Joining Red Bull Racing can be both a blessing and a curse for any driver who isn’t Max Verstappen — and that has certainly been the case for Yuki Tsunoda.

Since being promoted to the team, the Japanese driver has struggled to find his footing and bring the competition to his teammate. But according to former racer and Sky Sports pundit Nico Rosberg, there’s still something he can do to snag his place on the team.

Yuki Tsunoda can still impress at Red Bull Racing

As Max Verstappen sticks within a sniff of the McLaren duo at the top of the World Drivers’ Championship standings, his Red Bull teammate Yuki Tsunoda is whiling away down in 13th place, with a meagre 10 points to his name.

Much like Liam Lawson at the start of the season, Tsunoda has found the RB21 quite a handful, and it could impact his ability to stick it out with the team going forward.

“On a personal level, Yuki fits in perfectly with the team,” Christian Horner told German publication Bild in the build-up to the Spanish Grand Prix.

“He’s a good guy who contributes well to the garage.

“But if he wants to be considered for next year, he needs to keep improving.”

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Formar Formula 1 champion turned Sky Sports pundit Nico Rosberg reflected on Tsunoda’s difficult situation, saying, “Max Verstappen is a teammate killer. Without exaggerating. That’s just horrible to be a teammate to that guy.

“No one gets closer than six-tenths, which in F1 is like a different category. It’s really horrible.

“And poor Yuki — who’s a fantastic driver — is in that right now and really struggling.

“He said it just there; it’s so tough, because the lap was good, and yet he’s miles away. He’s down in 13th, six-tenths off Verstappen, nine-tenths off the lead.

“That’s such a tough situation to be in.”

Red Bull is somewhat notorious for building its cars around its number-one driver, and at the moment, that driver is four-time World Champion Max Verstappen.

But why can’t Red Bull engineer a car to better fit that second driver?

“I struggle to understand that myself,” Rosberg admitted.

“Everything just points to Max Verstappen being so special. That’s the only thing you can say about that, because all these guys are great drivers.

“It looks like he’s just on another level to everybody else.”

All hope is not lost for Tsunoda, though. Rosberg believes there’s still a chance.

“The only thing he can do is work as hard as he possibly can to try and learn from what Max Verstappen is doing with that car: Understanding what set-up he’s running, why he’s running it, looking at the data, and just trying to copy step-by-step, corner-by-corner, as much as possible, all the time putting in so much effort,” he said.

“That’s the best thing he can do, and he should be able to get within three-tenths. And then that’s fine. If he’s within three-tenths, that’s totally okay.”

But would it be enough to guarantee his place on the team? That remains to be seen.

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