Yuki Tsunoda kept repeating one complaint on the Red Bull team radio during the Japanese Grand Prix, ‘it’s hard…’

Yuki Tsunoda didn’t have the Red Bull Racing debut that he dreamed of at the Japanese Grand Prix.

While Max Verstappen was producing another impeccable performance to win the Japanese Grand Prix, his new teammate Yuki Tsunoda had a much tougher time in the midfield.

Tsunoda immediately looked more comfortable than Liam Lawson during his first few laps as a Red Bull driver.

While Lawson struggled with the balance of the car before he was demoted to the Racing Bulls team, Tsunoda was immediately much closer to Verstappen’s lap times.

Red Bull discovered a setup change overnight at Suzuka that immediately improved his performance, but the Japanese driver couldn’t extract the same level of performance.

He ended up going out in Q2 during qualifying, unable to put together a quick enough lap for the top 10 shootout despite having shown earlier in the weekend that he had the capacity to do so.

That left Tsunoda starting P14 on the grid after benefiting from Carlos Sainz’s penalty, alongside Lawson.

While he made up a couple of positions, points were never on the cards as he discovered one inherent issue during the race that even Red Bull couldn’t fix.

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Yuki Tsunoda found it too ‘hard’ to follow other cars during the Japanese Grand Prix

Tsunoda’s struggles during the race were evident from his radio communications throughout the race.

Richard Wood is Tsunoda’s new race engineer and was keeping him calm throughout the race, and it was evident that there had been a shift in the 24-year-old’s mentality, listening to his messages across all 53 laps, where it would have been very easy to get wound up.

Although he made a strong start, overtaking Lawson on the opening lap, that’s where his progress ended.

Speaking on the team radio on lap 12 while following his old teammate Pierre Gasly, Tsunoda can be heard saying: “Car is OK, but it’s hard to overtake.”

Later in the race on lap 39 when he was stuck behind Fernando Alonso, Tsunoda was asked by his race engineer if there was anything they could do to help the balance of the car, and he explained: “Yeah, it’s just the dirty air is hard.”

Tsunoda’s final radio message highlighted his frustrations, and he admitted that he needed to do better in qualifying to maximise the performance of the car.

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Yuki Tsunoda would take ‘different approach’ to Japanese Grand Prix if he could do it again

Tsunoda was confident heading into the Japanese Grand Prix based on his time in the simulator, but discovered very quickly that the RB21 didn’t perform exactly like its virtual counterpart.

He initially aimed for a podium finish but quickly revised that target to a top 10 finish, which he still fell short of.

Tsunoda would change how he approached the race at Suzuka based on how the weekend played out, now that he understands the car better.

The most important thing Tsunoda can do going forward is concentrate on maximising his performance rather than worry about what’s happening on the other side of the garage.

Plenty of F1 fans complained about the lack of overtaking in Japan, something that Tsunoda can very much relate to.

The upcoming race in Bahrain should make overtaking easier, which might benefit Tsunoda and harm Verstappen.