Laurent Mekies shares a surprising revelation that propelled Yuki Tsunoda's qualifying performance in the F1 Belgian GP

Red Bull team principal and CEO Laurent Mekies revealed that they as a team decided to put on a new upgraded floor on Yuki Tsunoda's RB21, which propelled him to make his first Q3 appearance since Bahrain. The Japanese driver looked competitive against his teammate, Max Verstappen, in the qualifying session around the iconic Spa Francorchamps circuit on Saturday, July 26.

After being about three-tenths behind his four-time F1 world champion teammate throughout the session, the 25-year-old ended the qualifying session in P7. The former VCARB driver has scored just twice ever since making his move to the Austrian team in Suzuka earlier in the year.

Speaking with F1TV after qualifying, Mekies pointed out the reason behind their decision to put Yuki Tsunoda on the same floor as Max Verstappen and said:

“Finishing there, I’m sure, will give him a good boost in confidence. We upgraded his car just before qualifying as we are always pushing to the edge on our car parts quantity, but we decided to take the risk to upgrade his car."

“That’s why you may have seen we were nearly a bit late to go out in qualifying, but it was worth the effort from everyone. And certainly it helped in supporting his performance to get to a very, very good level.”

Since his crash in Imola qualifying, Yuki Tsunoda has not run the same specification of the car compared to his Dutch teammate.

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Yuki Tsunoda reflects on a positive qualifying in Spa

Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda stated that he was excited to start his 100th race in this sport in P7 after a positive qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix.

As per F1.com, the Japanese believed that the performance of the car changed after the new floor from the old specification he ran during the Sprint part of the weekend, saying:

"P7 for my 100th start tomorrow is so exciting, it feels like yesterday that I had my first ever race in Bahrain, and it really has been an interesting journey these past five years. The F1 environment can be hard but all you can do is keep pushing which is what we did today."

"It is a great feeling being back to the place where I should be, but I would like to say a huge thank you to my mechanics who managed to make the upgrade to the floor ahead of Qualifying. The upgrade allowed me to really push and drive much closer to the limit than has been possible previously."

Yuki Tsunoda has scored just seven points since shifting to Red Bull from VCARB and sits at a lowly P17 with 10 points to his name from 12 races and three Sprints thus far.