Yuki Tsunoda is once again turning heads in his second F1 2026 weekend as a stand-in driver. After an impressive showing at Zandvoort, he now faces a tougher adaptation challenge at Monza with the new cars.
The Racing Bulls driver had warned that the Italian Grand Prix would be a bigger test. The Temple of Speed is described as 'energy-starved' in 2026, putting a premium on energy management unlike the Dutch circuit.
2026 Cars and Old Habits Die Hard
First practice didn't go smoothly. Tsunoda admitted losing significant lap time simply because he kept forgetting to activate Straight Mode (SM) approaching the Parabolica corner.
“I keep forgetting using this SM towards Turn 11. I was like, oh, why am I losing so much lap time? Oh, well, actually, I'm not using SM,” he said with a laugh, as reported by Motorsport.com.
Old DRS habits still linger. In 2026, active aerodynamics replace DRS with more SM zones, including four activation points at Monza.
FP2 as Turning Point: Potential Emerging
In second practice, Tsunoda began to find his rhythm. He said things started to come together, resulting in a satisfying performance, though there's still room for improvement.
“In FP2, it all came a bit more together. It ended up pretty nicely, also knowing what kind of things we can still improve,” the Japanese driver stated.
He also acknowledged teammate Arvid Lindblad looks more comfortable in the car. Meanwhile, his own confidence isn't yet 100%, so he needs to gradually extract more performance.
Despite that, FP2 times show promising progress. With adaptation ongoing, Racing Bulls seems to have valuable ammunition for the rest of the weekend.
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