Tsunoda agrees with Verstappen that the Bahrain Grand Prix "will not be easy" for Red Bull

Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda has agreed with his teammate Max Verstappen that the Bahrain Grand Prix will be a very challenging one for the Austrian team.

The Japanese driver made it to Q3 during qualifying in what is his second race for Red Bull Racing, unable to do so at his home Grand Prix at Suzuka last weekend.

Nevertheless, the 24-year-old looked back at Saturday's session with relative satisfaction on his performance that saw him put his car in P10, especially considering the earlier sessions in the weekend for the Austrian team.

Tsunoda "happy" with progress, but not expecting much

"Q3 was my target, and considering what I had in the free practice sessions, it's a good recovery," Tsunoda said while speaking to several media sources, including GPblog, at the Bahrain International Circuit.

"It's just really difficult to be in the narrow window that this car operates, and just trying things, lots of things, and naturally, you have up and down performance, so I'm not really stressing much with that.

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"It's always tight, and if you go above a little bit, it's just like a cliff. It just doesn't work at all. So I'm just happy with the progress so far. I just keep doing what I'm doing, but I'm happy with the confidence level of this car. But the knowledge and understanding of this car is not there yet," continued the Japanese driver.

After qualifying in P7, Verstappen already mentioned after the session that he doesn't expect much during Sunday's Grand Prix behind the wheel of a challenging RB21, and that was something that Tsunoda also agreed with.

"Hopefully, I'm the guy who can overtake the cars in front. Because, like I say, it's still my second race, and it is a completely different situation compared to Suzuka, with much more degradation here. I'm sure it will be different compared to FP2, but FP2 on the ground wasn't that good, so I have to adjust it. But the car is different, so, hopefully, that will make it better. But it won't be easy," concluded Tsunoda.

This article was written in collaboration with Estéban den Toom