F1 Q&A: McLaren, Piastri, Norris, Verstappen, Leclerc, Tsunoda, Red Bull and Ford

Is Yuki Tsunoda out of a race seat next season? His only hope appears to be reserve with Aston Martin when they become a Honda works team. – Nick

Tsunoda is not out of a seat yet, but the clock is certainly ticking.

After the Italian Grand Prix, Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies was keen not to criticise Tsunoda too much, pointing out that he was in traffic and then had damage to his floor after a clash with Liam Lawson.

But Mekies did acknowledge that “it’s fair to say we have more work to do on race pace than qualifying pace with Yuki”. And that’s after Tsunoda qualified 10th, 0.727 seconds slower than team-mate Verstappen, who was on pole.

Tsunoda did not have the new floor available to Verstappen, but that does not explain the huge gap.

So, not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Mekies said after the Dutch Grand Prix that Red Bull were going to take their time making the decision, as there was no need to rush it.

But it’s very clear that Tsunoda is running out of time to make his case to be retained next year. And it looks like Isack Hadjar is in prime spot to be promoted to that seat from Racing Bulls.

On another Red Bull-related topic, it’s notable that, after a very difficult couple of races in Belgium and Hungary, Red Bull appear to be making progress in understanding their car.

Verstappen was second in the Netherlands – an on-merit third, if you factor in Norris’ retirement – and now he has won at Monza.

An upturn in performance was expected because of the circuit characteristics, but not to this extent.

And it has not gone unnoticed that this upturn has coincided with Mekies getting his feet under the table.

In Italy, Verstappen had positive things to say about his new boss.

“Up until now we’ve had a lot of races where we were just shooting left and right a little bit with the set-up of the car. Quite extreme changes, which shows that we were not in control,” Verstappen said.

“We were not fully understanding what to do. With Laurent having an engineering background, he’s asking the right questions to the engineers – common-sense questions – so I think that works really well.”

Mekies himself said: “My only role is to make sure the talent we have are put in the right positions to express their talents. We want to get to the maximum possible understanding of what has limited the project this year.”

Red Bull had a new floor in Monza, and, unlike last year, they had designed specific low-downforce wing for the track.

Mekies was reluctant to draw too many conclusions as to whether Red Bull’s step forward would continue into the following races.