How Tsunoda and Verstappen's laps compare on eye-opening first day in Japan

It's fair to say that, when Yuki Tsunoda's long-awaited debut run with Red Bull was previewed ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, expectations were low. Zero prior track time in a car known to be a particularly tricky customer doesn't tend to offer much in the way of confidence, but the home hero appeared to have settled in relatively swiftly as FP1's hour-long timer ticked by.

As it happened, Tsunoda ended the session just a tenth behind Max Verstappen, with an impressive turn of pace. This was no blast on a fresh set of softs versus a worn set for the Dutchman; the two had done their fastest first-session laps with soft tyres at a comparable level of wear and at a similar time in proceedings.

The exit of Turn 2 was a clear point of difference between the two drivers, rather underlining the varying confidence on the throttle pedal. Tsunoda lifted off the throttle sooner for Turn 3 while Verstappen settled the car with a single jab on the brakes - which rewarded him with a smidgen more momentum for the Esses.

As the pair emerged out of the initial series of corners and wound up the hill of the Dunlop Curve, Verstappen had collected a bit more speed through the longer left-hander. But there were two differences here: Verstappen had to take a small lift as he navigated the corner to stop it from washing out, while Tsunoda dropped down to fifth gear to get more engine braking out of the car and then kept the throttle pinned to reverse some of the arrears.

This helped Tsunoda take a bit more speed through the first Degner, although his exit was a lot more tentative and this offered Verstappen a bit more of an advantage through the second phase of the double-right. Verstappen was also marginally quicker through the hairpin, although Tsunoda felt confident enough to get on the throttle far earlier and gathered a smidgen more speed on the run to Spoon.

Here, Verstappen's comparative simpatico with the RB21 appeared to hold more value. The Dutchman got off the throttle later, threw in a later - and shorter - kick of the brakes for the first part of the double left.

Just a tenth of a second split Tsunoda and Verstappen on their best FP1 lap times

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

His second braking burst was actually earlier than Tsunoda's, but shorter in duration again, offering him the opportunity to ratchet on a smidgen of mid-corner throttle. At this moment, he was just over 0.2s up on Tsunoda, matching the duo's biggest gap over their laps. But it wasn't entirely settled and Verstappen had to lift - Tsunoda, again, was on the throttle out of the corner a touch sooner to slowly lessen the 0.2s arrears.

But, as 130R approached, Tsunoda's speed advantage through his earlier pedal-metal interface plateaued; in the flat-out left-hander, Verstappen got on level terms; they were separated by a tenth at this juncture. Of the two, Tsunoda found a 0.2s swing in the middle of the Casio Triangle, although Verstappen almost immediately reclaimed that by the corner's exit. That said, Tsunoda made a net gain through the final chicane - culminating in the final 0.107s difference.

When looking at Tsunoda's lap as a whole, one can't help but be impressed by his gutsiness so early on with a car that his erstwhile team-mate Liam Lawson clearly seemed to be a little scared by. Instead, he seems happy to have a car that he can spar with at the wheel, which might seem daunting at first - but taming it can yield a much bigger pay-off compared to the top end of the Racing Bulls machine.

Ensuring Tsunoda can plod through the race on a set of tyres without going overboard and losing time through short-stinting will need a bit more guile - especially without much in the way of FP2 experience to fall back on

The question is this: were Verstappen and Tsunoda running comparable engine modes? It wouldn’t have been surprising if Tsunoda was given a little bit more kick from the Honda powertrain, something of a token of Red Bull's desire to ensure he could start to find confidence out of the gate. But it was something team boss Christian Horner refuted speaking to Sky Sports F1 immediately after first practice, stating both were in “identical engine modes”.

There's also no real smoking gun in the GPS data - perhaps there's a few revs more on the straights, although the hairpin exit and Spoon exit examples suggest a level of parity; Tsunoda perhaps gets marginally better exits and gathers a bit more acceleration to reduce the delta, but Verstappen ensures that this stalls out as he appears to reach the same top-end speed.

Still, Tsunoda wisely built up into the session; although the idea of hustling the car to a statement lap will have been tempting, he reported in the early stages that he hadn't been pushing the RB21 to its extremities early on. And that's sensible, as stuffing the car into the barriers does nobody's preparation any good.

A solid start for Tsunoda, but he has no long-run experience to use going into Saturday

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Race pace will be another arena entirely; understanding how to switch the car on in a qualifying lap will require all of Tsunoda's bravery and fleet-footedness, but ensuring that he can plod through the race on a set of tyres without going overboard and losing time through short-stinting will need a bit more guile - especially without much in the way of FP2 experience to fall back on.

FP2's red flag quartet costs true look at long-run form

The longest stretch of race-run-style simulations that took place in FP2 was a grand total of three - Lewis Hamilton and George Russell had got furthest into their longer runs before a brace of grass fires extinguished the chances of any teams gathering meaningful longer-run pace.

And if we're to directly compare the ex-team-mates' three-lap snippets, then Mercedes comes out ahead of Ferrari; Russell set a 1m32.751s, a 1m32.759s, and a 1m32.607s, while Hamilton did a 1m32.927s, a 1m33.233s, and a 1m33.439s. Both drivers were on hard tyres at the time.

What does this mean? Nothing really. We could theoretically fall back onto the FP1 longer-run pace to observe the fluctuations in form across the field, but it's rarely ever representative; Hamilton's medium-tyre times in the opening session were collectively slower than his FP2 hard-tyre times, and attempting to transpose the FP1 data into a meaningful discussion of long-run pace would be folly - especially without a complete enough data set to calculate the changes in pace between sessions.

Teams will thus cram everything that was planned for FP2 - before Jack Doohan, Fernando Alonso, and two grass fires rendered the best-laid plans obsolete - into Saturday's FP3. That doesn't leave much to chance, especially if the Suzuka grass remains bone dry, and the figure-of-eight venue is a track where one really shouldn't be taking too many liberties.

Besides, it might rain on Sunday - showers are currently forecast for some time between 11am and 2pm. That's just in time for the start...

Could the weather throw an extra test at Tsunoda on his Red Bull debut?

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images