After failing to make Q3 in Sprint Qualifying during the Belgian Grand Prix Weekend, which led to a stagnant sprint finish of 12th for Red Bull's Yuki Tsunoda, new Team Principal Laurent Mekies put the Red Bull garage to work to add an upgrade ahead of qualifying for Sunday's grand prix.
Tsunoda's floor was upgraded to be more in line with what his teammate, Max Verstappen, has been racing since Miami. Mekies said that Red Bull plays it tight with the quantity of car parts that they bring from weekend to weekend, so giving a new floor to Tsunoda was a risk.
"We’ve upgraded his car just before qualifying, as we are always pushing to the edge on our car parts quantity," Mekies told F1TV. "We decided to take the risk to upgrade his car, so that’s why you may have seen we were nearly a bit late to go out in qualifying."
That risk paid off in the Japanese driver's best qualifying effort since joining Red Bull in the third race of the season. In the first two races of the season, with Mekies as his Team Principal on the Red Bull sister team, Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, Tsunoda advanced to the third round of qualifying in both races for a fifth-place start in Australia and a ninth-place start in China.
This week he qualified seventh, just three positions and four tenths behind his teammate Verstappen.
The upgrades to Tsunoda's Red Bull are already paying dividends when it comes to the driver's comfort in the car, and one change gives the driver hope and the expectation of more work down the line.
Tsunoda hasn't scored a point since the seventh race of the year in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix; he has recorded 10 points total in 2025, with seven coming since the seat swap with Liam Lawson.
"Big credit to the team that they brought an upgrade just before qualifying," Tsunoda told F1TV. "I’m very happy with that, I felt a massive difference with that. Still some bits to go, but even the floor was a big upgrade."
Verstappen qualified fourth behind the two McLarens, with Lando Norris outperforming Oscar Piastri for the pole, and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc. Mekies was unsurprised by how far behind the leading Red Bull was from the McLarens, but was more frustrated by missing third to Leclerc by only a few thousandths.
"The gap to McLaren is proper fair, it’s obviously frustrating to be beaten by Charles by a few thousandths, but it’s part of the game," Mekies said. "I think overall, the gap is what it is 2 to 3 tenths behind, I think it’s reflecting the reality."
Mekies' former drivers, Lawson and Isack Hadjar, on VCARB, also advanced to Q3, qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix in eighth and ninth.
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