Red Bull and Max Verstappen arrive at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix looking to bounce back from a bruising experience last time out in Bahrain.

And after Red Bull’s reigning four-time World Champion Verstappen crossed the line P6 last weekend, with Tsunoda P9, even Verstappen did not know how to elevate their RB21 car, Tsunoda claims.

Red Bull RB21 stumped even Max Verstappen in Bahrain?

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Red Bull went into the Bahrain GP full of optimism after a shock pole and victory for Verstappen at Suzuka, a statement performance which re-energised belief that a fight could be mounted against McLaren for the titles.

Such a scenario remains far from off the table, but Red Bull has work to do after falling far outside the victory conversation at the following round in Bahrain – while an electronics gremlin caused chaos in the pit-stops and compounded their misery – making a reset at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix this weekend imperative.

But, with that goal in mind, it was concerning to hear Verstappen’s team-mate Tsunoda claim that in Bahrain, the Dutchman “didn’t have much idea how to maybe improve” the RB21.

“I think Bahrain was the track that I think this RB21 weakness exaggerated quite a lot more than other tracks,” Tsunoda told the media, including PlanetF1.com.

“Like a brake issue is the issue also I had from FP1, and I was already mentioning it, and it’s not the thing that we can solve immediately. And after FP1, I just stopped saying that, because it’s no point to keep complaining. Just wanted to talk of different stuff.

“But yeah, seems also Max struggled. At the same time, it’s hard, because Max didn’t have much idea how to maybe improve it throughout the week, because it was lots of things happening, you know, sliding and the car was not really reacting to the set-up. He was trying as well, the way he wanted.

“For me, outside, I was completely concentrating on different stuff. I feel like I’m still a rookie in this team, so I was just trying to make a separate mind and just try to discover, explore relative set-up.

“And yeah, I knew anyway, how Max builds throughout the week, builds the cockpit throughout the week. Compared to how I built the cockpit throughout the week is completely different, because the team have a really massive confidence in this car. So, I just make it separate and yeah, try to nail it down.”

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Tsunoda went on to detail how Verstappen’s sensitivities to the RB21 outweigh what he currently can experience.

“He can feel more than myself in that car,” said Tsunoda of Verstappen, “like how the tyre temp looks like, you know, get out from the garage.

“And in qualifying, this is a good example, the track temps going low, lower and lower throughout the qualifying, and he adjusted, from Q1 to Q3. When the temperature is going lower, he adjusted himself, and warm-up, how he should warm-up, how he should put the pressure into the tyres, to increase the lap time, or increase the pace of the out-lap, or whatever.

“But inside [the car] for me, I didn’t feel it that way. I didn’t be able to feel that. Which I did in the VCARB, but I didn’t feel it in this car yet.

“Because probably just I’m not fully relaxing driving this car. I just feel I’m still rushing and not fully in control yet. So those things, I mean, I kind of expect this. I’m not really like, ‘Oh, what is this?’ And actually, I’m in the shape that happier more than I expected.

“So, like I said I’m rushing, but it’s not really rushing. But I think that kind of few details is really important with his current regulation, with this very sensitive tyre, and you know, even that one tenth, or few milliseconds in each corner.”

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