Tsunoda's improvement fails to impress Marko: 'Wait until qualifying'
Max Verstappen didn’t have the best Friday. In FP2, he set his fastest lap of the day and finished fifth. Yuki Tsunoda was just three tenths behind in seventh, yet Helmut Marko wasn’t immediately impressed with the Japanese driver.
Tsunoda has had a challenging season so far. Since making his debut for Red Bull Racing in Japan, he hasn’t been able to extract the RB21's full potential.
In the Drivers' standings, he sits eighteenth with 10 points, while Verstappen has 187, placing the Dutchman third for now.
The Japanese driver has also faced several notable setbacks.
Earlier this season, he suffered a heavy crash in qualifying for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix and has frequently failed to get past Q1—most recently just before the summer break in Hungary.
Marko on Tsunoda's performances
The top seven finishing position that Tsunoda managed to achieve in the second free practice at Circuit Zandvoort could therefore be considered positive.
However, when asked about it in the presence of GPblog, Marko indicated that he was not immediately impressed: ''Let's wait 'till qualifying.''
Subsequently, the Red Bull advisor was asked about the impact the crash in Imola had on the Japanese.
Verstappen's teammate would have driven with an older version of the RB21 for some time after this incident, which may not have helped his performances. “It's true,” said Marko on the subject.
''Most of the races [he] was not on the same spec, but mainly through his crash in Imola, we were very short on parts.
''It was nearer in Hungary, but unfortunately there we hadn't been competitive, so he dropped out in Q1. But the tendency is moving forward,'' the Austrian concluded.
Overall, Friday didn’t go quite as Red Bull had hoped. Verstappen spoke of a difficult weekend after the afternoon sessions, and Marko noted that the upgrades Red Bull brought to Zandvoort had little impact.
