Why Yuki Tsunoda's Dutch GP points bid was undone by a Red Bull error

Laurent Mekies says Yuki Tsunoda is closing the performance gap to Max Verstappen - and explained why the Japanese driver’s failed to deliver at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Since Yuki Tsunoda's first start for Red Bull at the Japanese Grand Prix,he has struggled to show the early promise shown from his spell with Red Bull's sister team.

After crashes in Saudi Arabia and Imola, his subsequent time as Max Verstappen’s teammate was compromised due to a lack of available up-to-spec parts, further hindering his results.

Nevertheless, since Christian Horner’s removal as team principal and CEO at Red Bull Racing and Laurent Mekies taking over the Brit’s operational duties as the head of the Milton Keynes-based racing stable, the Frenchman says\ there is an improvement in Tsunoda's form.

After a complicated FP1 at Zandvoort, Tsunoda managed a top 7 finish in FP2. However, on Saturday he failed to make it past 12th in both FP3 as well as in qualifying, marking yet another failure to reach Q3, which compromised his race where he finished a lowly ninth.

Tsunoda was up for a points finish at Zandvoort

During the race, though, Tsunoda did impress with Mekies telling media including GPblog: "Yuki was a bit unfortunate with the first safety car timing because he was one of the one of two cars, [it] was him and Charles I think that had pitted before.

"So he lost like four or five positions, just because everybody got a cheap [pit] stop."

The Red Bull boss explained, though, that a strong result, despite his P12 starting position, was not ruled out and it was a realistic target for the Japanese driver.

He added: "But before that, he was in front of Antonelli. So if you look at the normal cycle, he would probably be around P7 [at the] end of the race. So he got a bit unfortunate there.

"Honestly, there is not much you can say on the pace, because he was probably glued in traffic for most of the race.

"We started him on softs as well. Same aggressive approach. But then we switched him on hard, having stopped a bit early," Mekies clarified.

Tsunoda's points-finish-derailing issue revealed

In the last stint of the race, Tsunoda seemed to lack the necessary speed - despite Mekies' predictions - and the Frenchman revealed that his lack of pace was actually caused by Tsunoda being in the wrong engine mode that meant he was down on power.

"It was not a PU problem, just to make things clear," said Mekies.

"We were locked into the wrong map after the final stop.

"Basically, when you are in the pit lane, you are changing maps, and if you don't change back, you are locked into it for the rest of the time.

"That's what happened. So he basically drove the final part with a really, really not friendly throttle map," Mekies concluded, making Red Bull accountable for Tsunoda's P9 finish at the flag.