How Yuki Tsunoda did in Japanese GP practice

The spotlight was very much on Yuki Tsunoda on Friday at Suzuka as the Japanese driver stepped up to the Red Bull seat for his first official outing following his promotion from Racing Bulls.

Tsunoda had claimed ahead of the weekend that the car wasn’t as tricky as he had expected following his runs in the simulator, and that appeared to reflect on his runs early on.

Right from the start of FP1, Tsunoda looked much more at ease behind the wheel of the RB21 than Liam Lawson, the man he has replaced, did in his only two outings with the team in Australia and China.

The Japanese completed two runs on soft tyres and managed a total of 25 laps, finishing just a tenth of a second behind Verstappen in what could only be seen as a positive start to life as a Red Bull driver.

Assessing Tsunoda’s performance in second practice was a lot trickier given the four red flags that hindered the running and which meant nearly half of the 60 minutes were lost for all drivers.

Tsunoda set his quickest time of the session early on, but then failed to finish his second flier on medium tyres due to one of the red flags.

While Verstappen did manage a soft-tyre run before more red flags were deployed, Tsunoda was unable to. When he finally returned to the track in the dying minutes of the session, he only did a couple of slow laps, apparently on heavy fuel.

All that meant that Tsunoda finished two seconds behind his team-mate, down in 18th position, and that a truer reflection of his performance will only emerge on Saturday.

How Lawson’s day went

While Tsunoda lost out to the red flags in second practice, things went the opposite way for Lawson, back in the Racing Bulls car after his demotion.

The Kiwi had a discreet first practice as he acclimatised to the car, winding up 13th about three-tenths behind his new team-mate Isack Hadjar.

In the second session, Lawson fared better as he managed to put in a performance lap on soft tyres before the red flags ruined a lot of drivers’ runs. He went fifth fastest, just a smidge behind Hadjar.

Ironically, Lawson was quicker than Verstappen in the Red Bull, and the world champion was one of the drivers who had managed to put in a soft-tyre lap before the red flags emerged.

While not hugely significant given it was only Friday practice, the result will have been what Lawson needed as he tries to bounce back from his devastating demotion just two weeks ago.

Second Japanese GP practice results