How Yuki Tsunoda’s first day back as an F1 driver went

Yuki Tsunoda has qualified 12th for the Dutch Grand Prix sprint, a performance the Racing Bulls returnee is “pretty satisfied with” as he adapts to Formula 1’s new machinery.

Isack Hadjar’s wrist injury over the summer break caused his withdrawal from this weekend’s event, with Liam Lawson temporarily promoted to Red Bull while Tsunoda, a reserve driver for both teams, inherited his seat at Racing Bulls.

Entering his 115th career grand prix, Tsunoda completed a whopping 35 laps in practice, going 17th-fastest with an eight-tenth gap to rookie team-mate Arvid Lindblad. On a tricky sprint weekend, he cut that deficit to 0.433s in SQ1 and 0.360s in SQ2 to take 12th on the grid for the short-distance race.

“To be honest, everything really feels like a rookie, like brake pressure, everything is a lot different to the previous year and everything,” Tsunoda commented after the session. “And you have two sets of tyres, you don't want to damage the tyres straight away, so it was pretty tricky.

“But in the end, I'm pretty satisfied with the performance I had in qualifying, the sprint qualifying. Obviously, a couple more things I can improve, but this kind of format, you want to gradually build.”

This was Tsunoda’s first experience with 2026-spec F1 cars, with completely new engines featuring 47% electric power, which means energy management has become crucial compared to the previous generation.

Asked how he got to grips with that, the 26-year-old replied: “For here, it's more like just to learn about the car. It was very early stages, so it's a bit different.

“And maybe it's not fair to say, but most of the drivers were a little bit struggling with the balance and the brake performance and the amount of downforce that this car lost compared to last year. So, I need a quick adapt, you know?

“I've driven last year's car, which is probably one of the fastest cars in history, right? And I enjoyed so much with the TPCs [Testing of Previous Cars]. But going to this car feels a lot different, especially high-speed corners. And this kind of traditional track, there's not much room in the run-off area. So you want to gradually build up. But yeah, I enjoyed this process.

“My main objective is tomorrow in qualifying. So far, I think I'm able to build up session by session pretty good. So, yeah, excited for the long run tomorrow. That's what I need for all of the data before the qualifying [and] race.”

In other words, with just the top eight scoring points in the sprint, Tsunoda will focus on gaining experience over the 24-lap dash, which may be invaluable for the remainder of the weekend.

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