Helmut Marko heaps praise on Yuki Tsunoda: “Mistakes are a thing of the past”

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has heaped praise on Yuki Tsunoda after his impressive start to the 2024 F1 season.

Tsunoda has been one of the midfield’s standout drivers, making Q3 on three occasions.

He's converted that into two top 10 finishes, ensuring RB sit comfortably at the top of the midfield in the constructors’ championship.

Despite his strong form, and dominant displays over Daniel Ricciardo, Tsunoda isn’t thought to be in the running for a Red Bull drive.

The Japanese driver’s radio outbursts - and general inconsistency - were criticisms often pointed towards Tsunoda.

However, Marko feels that this criticism is now history, stating he’s “really blossomed” as a driver.

“There are four races and Yuki has brought the car into Q3 three times,” he told Sky Deutschland. “He is consistent and the mistakes are a thing of the past.

“His lack of control on the radio is also gone. He’s really blossomed.

“But it’s April and we still have a lot of races left. We’ll look at the driver situation when the summer break comes.

“We want to watch it closely and make the right decision. That will certainly take until the summer.”

Tsunoda finished 10th at Suzuka after a fast pit stop from RB allowed him to jump a number of his midfield rivals.

He described his pit stop crew as “supermen”.

“We struggled at the first start,” said Tsunoda. “We were wearing medium and the two cars behind, Haas and [Sauber] was wearing soft, so probably there was an advantage for softs.

“I two lost positions, I was bit disappointed, but at the same time I was able to regain that two positions at the restart, after I wore the softs. So I think I did very well there, regained there at the start.

“After that the pace was good, I was just feeling comfortable. Obviously I lost a bit of positions at the first pit stop. But after that still the pace was good and in the end the team did like a super hero job, I feel like Supermen were doing my pit stops, that was crazy. I was very happy.”