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By Saajan Jogia
Sports Contributing Writer
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Red Bull Racing Formula One driver Yuki Tsunoda received a last-minute upgrade on his RB21 F1 car ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix qualifying session at Spa-Francorchamps. New Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies took the call to boost Tsunoda's performance and confidence, which became evident with his Q3 result.
Tsunoda secured his best qualifying finish since his Red Bull promotion in March, securing a P7 start for the Grand Prix on Sunday. Mekies, who replaced Christian Horner after the last race at Silverstone, noticed that Tsunoda was still running the old floor, while his teammate Max Verstappen was running the latest upgrade on the RB21.
Due to the limited number of upgraded floors available with Red Bull, they were kept as a reserve for Verstappen, in case his car suffered floor damage. However, Mekies chose to run the spare on Tsunoda's car, offering him a much-needed performance gain. Although Tsunoda's RB21 won't have the upgraded front wing as Verstappen's, the new floor has made a significant difference in qualifying. Speaking to F1 TV, Mekies said:
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"For Yuki, it was a very, very good step forward through the weekend, so it's good to see him in Q3. Finishing there, I'm sure will give him a good boost in confidence. We upgraded his car just before qualifying as we are always pushing to the edge on our car parts quantity, but we decided to take the risk to upgrade his car.
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"That's why you may have seen we were nearly a bit late to go out in qualifying, but it was worth the effort from everyone. And certainly it helped in supporting his performance to get to a very, very good level."
Tsunoda worked closely with Mekies at Racing Bulls before he was moved to Red Bull. Expressing his satisfaction at the upgrade, which now gives him the confidence to push his car further, the Japanese driver said:
"Considering the difference I've always had in terms of laptime delta, between Max and myself, that's huge.
"So I knew in myself and my engineering group, that we are in the right direction, myself to improve in the way we want happy that I approve it.
"But yeah, generally, a bit more grip. The previous one was more sensitive, easier to slide. With this one, you can be aggressive, I would say."
Tsunoda admitted that seeing Mekies in the Red Bull garage elevated his confidence level. He said:
"Seeing Laurent at the end of Qualifying gave me flashbacks from when we worked together at Racing Bulls.
"He smiled directly at me as soon as I pulled in today and it really boosted my confidence."
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