With all the fuss over Max Verstappen playing low speed bumper cars with his multi-million dollar F1 prototype racing machine, it appears the other nineteen drivers at the Spanish Grand Prix have missed out on their fair share of coverage.
Nico Hulkenberg for example pulled blinder in his laughing stock of an Sauber/Audi car. The weekend did not start well for ‘the hulk’ who failed to match his rookie team mate and make it out of the first round of qualifying. This despite the team bringing its first big upgrades of the year with tweaks to the all important floor improving downforce, a new engine cover and front wing too.
The man who has the most F1 starts and not yet scored a podium finish has been under greater pressure this year following his move from Haas F1. Hulkenberg a specialist in qualifying but has struggled to assert his dominance this season over rookie team mate Gabriel Bortoleto, who is the reigning F2 champion.
Hulkenberg’s remarkable weekend
Bortoleto closed the intra-team qualifying tally this season to 4-5 in his team mates favour in Barcelona, yet come the race it was the experienced German who pulled out all the stops. An incredible lap one crafted with a number of opportunistic mauves saw Hulkenberg move from hs starting position of P15 to P10 by the end of the first lap of the Circuit de Catalunya.
And having qualified poorly, Nico had plenty of fresh tyres for what would prove to be a rubber hungry event in the Iberian peninsular. The late safety car capped off what was an extra-ordinary day for Hulkenberg as he pitted for another fresh set of tyres climbing through the field to P6 which was a net P5 after Verstappen’s time penalty was applied.
Another driver having had a disappointing qualifying was Yuki Tsunodo. He was plumb last in the first qualifying session and Red Bull elected to start him from the pit lane after making parc ferme changes to the RB21. This is the second time in three races where Yuki has started from the pit lane, the last being after he crashed out of Q1 in Imola.
It is in fact the fourth pit lane start for the number two Red bull car this season, as the team struggles to give whoever is in the driving seat a car which is stable to drive. Tsunoda started the first race of the year in P5 whilst he was at the Racing Bulls team and his best in the RB21 has been a solid eighth, yet the Japanese driver appeared confused for most of the weekend in Spain as to why he was so slow.
Yuki admits being too slow
“I just don’t have any idea why I am slow,” reported Yuki following his Q1 elimination. He was half a second slower than his team mate but Tsunoda insisted both his runs had been clean. “There’s not anything, a mistake or whatever, in both laps,” he reported after the session.
Of course Yuki’s introduction to the Red Bull Racing team was not idea. He failed to get the votes of the team management in December last, which would have seen him offered the vacant seat of Sergio Perez. Instead that went to Liam Lawson. Yet just two races into the 2025 season, lawson was dropped and Tsunoda promoted alongside the world champion.
Whilst the sample for Lawson is small, Tsunoda has reduced the average gap in qualifying to Verstappen, although it is still a shocking 0.8 seconds after seven weekends racing together. To put this in comparison, Lewis Hamilton who appears devastated at his current form is just over 0.2s slower than his team mate Charles Leclerc.
Now in his fifth season in F1, Red Bull had hoped that Tsunoda wold prove a better parter for Max Verstappen than did Lawson or even Sergio Perez, although the much maligned Mexican driver in 2024 is now probably smiling to himself as he watches his old team’s struggles.
Horner dodges the issue
‘Nobody could be that bad when compared to Verstappen – surely?’ Critiqued the F1 analysts of Checo. ‘Red Bull must have a better option than Perez’, cried the media headlines. The challenge for now rests with Yuki Tsunoda who can at least be comforted that his average qualifying deficit to Verstappen is around two tenths quicker than was Checo’s in 2024.
Yuki’s best performances for Red Bull since his promotion have been two P10’s ands a P9 finish in Bahrain, yet this was hardly the kind of form Red Bull hoped their number two driver would delivering his bid to help Verstappen to a fifth consecutive world drivers’ title. When asked whether the team were considering another driver to partner Verstappen this year, the Red Bull boss was non-committal.
“I think I’m going to take a leaf out of Flavio’s [Briatore] book and say, ‘I don’t want to answer it’,” said Christian Horner. A classic response of someone who doesn’t want a definitive answer coming back to haunt him. “Look, it’s early days for Yuki. He’s still settling in. He’s been in Q3, scored points, he’s scored points from the pit lane,” added the Red Bull boss.
Then Horner concluded with the usual platitudes citing “a few incidents,” and “a long way to go” with “time on our side.” Despite this almost casual encounter with Horner, behind the scenes Dr. Helmut Marko is ramping up the pressure for change once again. Having called out the latest recruit from his young driver development programme, ‘a cry baby’ for his failure to make the grid in Australia, Marko has been bigger up Isack Hadjar week in and out for his performances.
Marko praises Hadjar “heat” on Tsunoda
In Spain Hadjar qualified in the top ten again meaning only Alex Albon has more Q3 appearances from a driver not in a top four F1 team than the Racing Bull’s driver. He has scored points in five of the nine Grand Prix held so far this year and is a remarkable P9 in the drivers’ championship behind Williams driver Albon.
Hadjar is beating his more experienced team mate Liam Lawson hands down and in Monaco, Dr. Marko was effusive with his praise of the French-Algerian driver. “Hadjar is the big surprise for me,” Kronen Zeitung reported the Austrian saying. “He delivers his performance calmly and as if it was second nature. It’s even more impressive considering that he does not know most of the circuits.”
Marko even suggested Hadjar was putting pressure on Tsunoda and with his key sponsor moving to Aston Martin next season, his future at Red bull is uncertain. “Yuki already feels the heat on his neck,” the Austrian declared. “He loses ground as soon as he is under pressure.”
Clearly Horner’s desire to ‘plead the 5th’ when asked about Yuki’s future at Red Bull is a sign the sands are shifting at Milton Keynes and that another driver switch may be on the cards sooner than most paddock folk think.
Cadillac introduces first top sponsor, you won’t believe it
MUSINGS FROM THE TJ13 NOTEBOOK – Cadillac’s Runway to the Grid as the team’s first top sponsor joins the most American team in Formula 1 (probably) – Start your engines, and your fashion lines! It was only a matter of time before someone took a long, hard look at Formula 1, the world’s most expensive rolling fashion show, and thought: ‘You know what this needs? More Americana.” Enter Cadillac, who are not just dipping a toe into the sport, but diving headfirst into the deep end of global motorsport with the kind of overconfident swagger usually reserved for sequinned cowboy boots and presidential campaign launches.
To make their entrance as loud and unmistakably star-spangled as possible, they’ve enlisted the help of Tommy Hilfiger — the brand your uncle wears to backyard barbecues while insisting that Springsteen peaked in ’84. According to team boss Graeme Lowdon, this fashion-forward collaboration is about more than just branding.
“This partnership reflects the very spirit of what we are building,” he proclaimed, presumably while standing next to a show car wrapped in stars and stripes….. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
