Red Bull now disagree with one aspect of Yuki Tsunoda’s F1 approach after Spanish Grand Prix qualifying disaster

Red Bull Racing driver Yuki Tsunoda has plenty of work to do if he is to avoid a complete disaster at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Yuki Tsunoda will start the Spanish Grand Prix from the back of the grid after setting the slowest time during Saturday’s qualifying session.

The track was rapidly improving, but Tsunoda couldn’t even find enough time to jump ahead of Alpine driver Franco Colapinto, who suffered a technical issue, that denied him a final run in Q1.

This means that, for the fifth time this season, including Sprint qualifying sessions, a Red Bull driver has set the slowest time over one lap.

Liam Lawson lost his Red Bull seat after setting the slowest time in qualifying for both races in China, and pressure is beginning to increase on Tsunoda after his latest failure.

With each new driver that joins Max Verstappen at Red Bull, it becomes clearer that the car is virtually impossible to drive unless you’re the four-time world champion.

This is causing more and more consternation for team principal Christian Horner and chief advisor Helmut Marko.

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Red Bull want Yuki Tsunoda to stop trying to copy Max Verstappen after Spanish Grand Prix qualifying failure

A report from The Race has shared more details about why Tsunoda might be struggling so much in the RB21.

He didn’t look particularly competitive in practice, and while he’s running a different specification car to Verstappen, that’s an issue he partially caused for himself.

Tsunoda’s crash in qualifying in Imola has denied him the latest spec floor, but that’s only expected to be worth ‘around a tenth of a second’.

It’s reported that Tsunoda is ‘trying to drive like Verstappen’ because he thinks this is ‘crucial’ in getting the maximum potential out of the RB21.

However, Red Bull want Tsunoda to adapt this aspect of his approach, believing that he needs to ‘accept a slightly lower ceiling and focus on driving more naturally’.

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Yuki Tsunoda explains why he thinks he’s struggling so much at Red Bull

Tsunoda has only scored seven points in the seven race weekends since being promoted from Racing Bulls.

It means Isack Hadjar is currently the second-best performing Red Bull-backed driver and he impressed again in qualifying by reaching Q3 in Spain.

Asked about his most recent difficulties, Tsunoda said: “Until Monaco, I was having good progress throughout and the last two sessions I was matching or a bit faster than Max, and suddenly it drops like hell.

“And whatever I do, every lap, even like a long run was a good example – just whatever I do, nothing happens. And it feels like this car is eating the tyres like hell, having degradation massively.

“It doesn’t really stack up. The core limitation is still there, and I don’t know what it is, and I can’t really have any answer to that.

“I’m still convinced that we’re able to at least put it all together in terms of the car balance,” he said.

“The car balance itself is not bad, and at least also my confidence was there. The lap in qualifying in both tyres, especially the last push, was pretty good.

“It doesn’t really stack up with my result and the pace I’m having.”

Marko has suggested that internal discussions about Tsunoda’s performance are taking place to try and understand what’s going wrong.

Hadjar is the natural replacement for the 25-year-old at this stage, but disrupting his development at such an early stage of his career seems like a bad idea.

However, Horner is running out of alternatives, and waiting until the winter break and new regulations are introduced in 2026 might give whoever is alongside Verstappen next year a better chance of being successful.