At the first free practice in Japan, most eyes are on Yuki Tsunoda, the new teammate of Max Verstappen. The Japanese driver’s start is promising, as he trails the world champion by only a tenth of a second, leaving the track to loud applause. However, the Red Bulls are (for now) not close to McLaren’s Lando Norris.
Cheers echo from the stands as Yuki Tsunoda exits the Red Bull garage just after 11:30 UTC for his first official laps in the RB21. Tsunoda is replacing Liam Lawson, who, after two races and to the dissatisfaction of teammate Max Verstappen, has been demoted to the Racing Bulls training team. Tsunoda begins his ‘dream journey’ on a circuit he knows like the back of his hand, with the outcome still uncertain.
Verstappen sets the pace during the initial skirmishes on the softest tyre type, but is soon overtaken by George Russell on the mediums. Halfway through the session, the Brit also clocks the fastest time on the softest tyre. After a quiet start, Tsunoda begins to gain more confidence in his new vehicle. He finishes just over a tenth behind colleague Verstappen and three-tenths behind Russell. When his engineer reports this, the Japanese driver responds that he ‘prefers to focus on ourselves rather than the competition’.
Charles Leclerc, representing Ferrari, which has something to prove after the double disqualification two weeks earlier in China, squeezes between Russell and Verstappen, who has a far from trouble-free session. In the end, Russell’s time does not hold up. After Lando Norris has a brief off-track excursion, he quickly recovers. The British World Championship leader is slightly more than a tenth faster in the McLaren, which experts consider to be the best car by a considerable margin.
