Yuki Tsunoda elated after qualifying at F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

After dominating Formula 1 headlines for all the wrong reasons coming out of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Yuki Tsunoda needed a solid performance this week at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

In Friday’s qualifying session, he delivered just that.

Tsunoda advanced to Q3, and put his RB01 into P9, where he will start alongside Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll. Tsunoda, who received a lot of criticism in recent days following an incident in the closing stages of the Bahrain Grand Prix — where the driver balked at a set of team orders to let teammate Daniel Ricciardo pass him — was elated at the result.

“We did it! I’m very happy today,” exclaimed Tsunoda in the post-qualifying media report from Visa Cash App RB F1 Team.

“The team did a fantastic job of giving me a nice car, and I enjoyed it, so a huge thanks to everyone,” added Tsunoda. “We were expecting it to be difficult, but I focused on myself to extract as much performance from the car as possible, and I’m pleased I was able to put it all together. It’s the first Q3 of the year and it’s given us extra confidence for the future. I enjoyed today a lot, but tomorrow won’t be easy, so we now focus on the race. We have a lot of experienced people, and I’m confident we can maximise our package and score some points.”

On the other side of the garage, it was a bit more of a frustrating Friday for Ricciardo. The veteran driver managed to push into Q2, but his day ended there.

Ricciardo will start the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in P14.

“It was a very frustrating qualifying. Compared to Bahrain, where I was more frustrated with myself because I knew there was more time on the table, today was a little bit more of a mystery. I know where the time was, but I don’t know how we could’ve got it in that session. I was confident going into qualifying, and I was feeling quite good in the car, but on the second run, I made a mistake,” described Ricciardo. “Nonetheless, we were still in the fight. Once in Q2, everyone was improving their lap time, but I felt like I couldn’t get any more out of what I had, and we just plateaued. It wasn’t a matter of understeer or oversteer, but more that I didn’t have the grip compared to the others.”

Still, Ricciardo praised his teammate’s performance before turning his thoughts to tomorrow.

“Well done to Yuki, he did a great job! Thinking of tomorrow, I have a few areas in mind to analyse, so we’ll look into them and hopefully, we’ll find more performance for the race,” added Ricciardo.

Guillaume Dezoteux, VCARB’s Head of Vehicle Performance, praised both drivers.

“The qualifying session went very well for Yuki, who managed to get to Q3 and secure P9 ahead of Stroll. The car felt consistent during the entire session, and our plan of focusing on single laps, getting good traffic windows and adapting the balance to the track evolution worked very well,” said Dezoteux. “Daniel made it through to Q2 with some margin but unfortunately couldn’t progress to Q3. It appeared more difficult for him to put the lap together, and some corners - like Turn 4 - were difficult, which is something we need to understand better.”

Now the team turns to the grand prix itself, and how they can turn a decent Friday into points.

“Tonight, we will work on the strategy simulations to define the most likely scenarios for the race,” added Dezoteux. “The cars directly ahead of us are slightly faster, but we know Jeddah can offer eventful races, and our target is to score the first points of the season here.”