Back in ‘Q3’
The Shanghai weekend has once again started with a positive result for Racing Bulls and its driver Yuki Tsunoda, who is back in the top ten, just as in the last qualifying session of the Australian GP. In the chase for pole position for the Chinese GP Sprint, car #22 brought his VCARB02 to eighth place, behind the Mercedes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
A single doubt about the setup
A satisfying outcome for the Asian driver, though he is convinced that his performance on this circuit could have resulted in a better grid position for tomorrow’s race with the right setup adjustments: “I’m happy with the result and how things went,” he explained. “We could have done a couple of things better in terms of setup, we didn’t feel 100%, and we weren’t able to extract the full performance of the car. We’ll need to analyze it, but I’m very happy. It was unfortunate for Isack, but at the same time, he gave me a nice tow in SQ2, which helped me, so I thank him—it was good teamwork. Let’s see tomorrow!”
Hadjar’s mistake
Tsunoda’s last remarks refer to the tow provided by his teammate on his fastest lap, with Hadjar finishing SQ2 without a time, in 15th place, after making a mistake in the early stages of the session. However, the Frenchman pointed out encouraging signs for tomorrow’s race and the rest of the weekend: “In SQ1, I felt very good and strong in the car, and we were quite close to the frontrunners,” he commented. “Then I knew I had to put in a good lap in SQ2 to make it to SQ3, but unfortunately, I overdid it and had to abort the lap. I think everyone is struggling here because it’s a tough track for the tires on entry, and they overheat throughout the corner. It’s a shame because it seems we have a good car, but it’s still a learning process, and we’ll understand what went wrong today in preparation for the Sprint and tomorrow’s qualifying.”
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