Tsunoda’s former boss hails ‘360 degree’ improvement from Japanese driver as he reveals the quality that will help him succeed at Red Bull

Racing Bulls Team Principal Laurent Mekies has heaped praise on the “incredible step” that Yuki Tsunoda has made in the past year which resulted in his promotion to Red Bull.

After being overlooked by Red Bull in the winter months, questions were raised about if and when Tsunoda would ever get a shot alongside Max Verstappen in the senior team.

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But just two races into the new season, Tsunoda got his chance, with his strong performances coming at the same time as Liam Lawson struggled to get to grips with the RB21.

Speaking in the FIA press conference between practice sessions on Friday in Suzuka, Mekies declared Tsunoda ready for the opportunity and heaped praise on the growth he has seen across the past 12 months.

“We often think that drivers only grow precisely from a maturity standpoint – in the calmness and in the analysis – but I think in Yuki’s case, we have seen him making steps 360 degrees,” he said.

“We have seen him being more calm, being more mature, improving massively his technical feedback. Really quite an incredible step across the last 12 months, and this is converting to speed.

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“As a result, the natural speed when he gets into the car is higher straight away. When you combine all that, well, you turn a young driver into a team leader, and that’s really the role he was taking into the team, certainly from the start of the season.

“So I think it was a very impressive example of improvement at 360 degrees, and as we know, it never comes for free or with no effort. You can sense how much effort and concentration he's been putting into that.”

Asked what had been the most impressive thing he had witnessed from Tsunoda, he added: “He’s able to turn up to a race weekend and, from the first lap of FP1 to the last lap of the race, do just a purely faultless weekend.

“Of course, we [at Racing Bulls] are not fast enough for that to be visible to most of you guys, but we have seen him executing weekends, or qualifications, or races under serious pressure.

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“Take Melbourne – he put the car in P5 there on the dry, I think it’s his best Qualifying ever.

"Take the Sprint Race in China – he finished P6 with huge pressure from faster cars behind him, didn’t put a foot wrong. So what you see outside of the car is certainly turning up into very tangible improvements when he’s driving the car.”