You could already see the headlines pre-weekend. 'Liam Lawson outqualifies his replacement Yuki Tsunoda at the Japanese Grand Prix'.
Given the peak of the Racing Bulls is so much more accessible than the Red Bull, it looked like a likely outcome for Saturday.
But Tsunoda’s impressive progression through the three practice sessions and Q1 - where he was right on terms with Max Verstappen - had the promise of a headline-grabbing Red Bull debut for the right reasons.
So how did Tsunoda end up slowest of all in Q2, even behind Lawson, who was five places behind his new Racing Bulls team-mate Isack Hadjar?
What went wrong
Edd Straw
Tsunoda ran with more rear wing than his team-mate and qualifying started well, the RB21 debutant breezing through Q1 in seventh place.
On the first runs, he was 0.294s off Verstappen - but closed the gap to just 0.024s with the strong second run.
Unfortunately, Q2 wasn’t so well-executed. The first run was never likely to be good enough given he ran used softs, compared to Verstappen’s fresh set, but even so his first lap was a considerable 0.652s off his team-mate.
The critical flying lap on the second run started to get away from Tsunoda even before it had begun, with a wobble at the exit of the chicane starting the lap. He then had a big snap in the turn-in phase for Turn 2, which meant we had a time-sapping wide moment.
From there, he was always up against it and only improved on his first run by 0.154s - lapping slightly slower than he had in Q1. That meant he was just over two tenths off reaching Q3, which was a disappointing performance given he did have the pace to have made the top 10 had he delivered on the second run.
Not making excuses - but Tsunoda has more to work on
Ben Anderson and Scott Mitchell-Malm
Tsunoda's own feelings about his qualifying performance were perhaps typical of a driver in a new environment, still early into the process of discovering and understanding the peculiarities of what everyone accepts is a tricky Red Bull to drive.
He repeatedly mentioned correct tyre warm-up being the thing that was missing for him in Q2, which would explain the slides he had just before and very early into his final flying lap - which he says was also compromised by "quite a big gust" of wind at Turn 2.
"Q1 felt pretty good, I just missed the window I guess," Tsunoda said.
"The window this car can operate is very narrow, and the [tyre] warm-up probably most of the things have to be almost perfect - especially warm-up.
"And especially Q2 run two, I wasn't able to do the warm-up I wanted, as [I did in] previous runs. That makes a big difference in the end, so… something I learned, recognised in Q2 - but it was a bit too late and it’s a shame I wasn't able to get it when it matters."
Tsunoda was clearly very disappointed to underperform to this extent in Q2, saying he "didn't expect" such a poor final result even with the fact practice running was disrupted by multiple red flags - on Friday especially.
Interestingly, he mentioned feeling after Q2 like he's now read "the whole textbook" on how this Red Bull works, which suggests there can be no more excuses at future races, in terms of adaptation or the like.
But the fact he stuck with running the higher downforce levels team boss Christian Horner confirmed both drivers trialled in FP3, rather than evolving away from that direction like Verstappen did, suggests there is still some progression needed for Tsunoda to feel fully confident with the tradeoffs needed to extract maximum performance from the RB21.
"I feel like this car is on the edge with the rear," Tsunoda said. "At least for now I feel pretty OK with the stability, I would say, in terms of rear sliding.
"I’m feeling it! But I feel at the same time this kind of direction is the setup I have to drive to perform well in the car, so… at least I recognised it throughout FP1 and the practices, and just wasn’t enough in the end to put it all together I guess.
"I felt last two days that if I’m able to sync with the car much more, I know I can extract much more consistently, which is important.
"At least I showed good pace in Q1 and feel like I have good confidence in the car."
