Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner gave his opinion on Yuki Tsunoda's and Daniel Ricciardo's performances after the fourth round of the 2024 season.
The 2024 Japanese Grand Prix went terribly and super well for Racing Bulls at the same time. One side of the garage had very little reason for celebration as Daniel Ricciardo was out of the race in less than three corners.
The other side of the garage celebrated the second race weekend in a row as Yuki Tsunoda managed to finish in points during his home Grand Prix after a superb drive.
Red Bull's bosses were very impressed with the 23-year-old's performance. Helmut Marko suggested that it was on par with the likes of Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso, while Christian Horner said, as quoted by mirror.co.uk:
"Yuki did a good job to score a point, it's great for him, great for Honda, good for the VCARB team so pleased for them."
Concerning the lap-one incident between Daniel Ricciardo and Alex Albon, which wasn't penalized by the stewards in the end, the team principal said said:
"It felt like Daniel looked to the left, Alex is to the right, sort of a racing incident. It's a brutal place to go off and thankfully both of them are okay. But, from what I saw, difficult to apportion blame."
In terms of results, Danial Ricciardo has never had such a bad start to the season as he's currently having. He pretty much matched the times of his teammate in qualifying and needed a strong race, but unfortunately, it didn't turn out well for him.
The 50-year-old team principal keeps believing in the honey badger, saying all it takes for him to return to his rhythm is one good performance.
"Daniel's a big boy, he's been around the block and he knows how things work and I think he just needs to get a good result in the bag and then the smile will return. His team-mate is delivering and that naturally puts pressure on, but he's been there before."