SUZUKA, Japan -- Yuki Tsunoda is confident the issues faced by previous Red Bull drivers when competing against Max Verstappen in the same car will not impact him to the same extent.
After the Chinese Grand Prix two weeks ago, Tsunoda was called up to replace Liam Lawson at Red Bull after the New Zealander struggled for performance during the first two races of the season.
The Japanese driver will be Verstappen's third teammate in four races after Sergio Perez lost his place at the team at the end of 2024 following a season-long struggle to match the four-time world champion in the same car and was replaced by Lawson for all of two races.
The quick turnover of drivers has highlighted the difficulties of partnering Verstappen in a Red Bull that is notoriously tricky to drive on the limit, but Tsunoda believes he can buck the trend.
"I have confidence," he said at Suzuka on Thursday ahead of his home race weekend in Japan. "I'm not saying I have the confidence that I can perform straight away like Max, but I have confidence that I can do something different, hopefully, compared to other drivers that will be in the car.
"If I didn't have confidence, I wouldn't be wearing this [Red Bull team clothing]. I would have stayed in [junior team] Racing Bulls.
"Racing Bulls already have such a good car, and I understand how they extract performance in every race so far but because I wanted to have a new challenge, and I have good confidence to challenge myself, so that's why I'm wearing this and hitting the track with a different livery."
Tsunoda said Red Bull team principal Christian Horner called him to let him know about the driver swap in the days following the Chinese Grand Prix, but said he could not offer "specific details" about how the process unfolded.
He added that Horner had been supportive so far and had not given him a deadline by which he was expected to be on or near the pace of Verstappen.
"I didn't get any specific number of races or time to prove myself," he added. "He's been very supportive so far and just mentioned the expectations he has of me - what he wants me to achieve.
"Pressure always comes once you hit the track. But for now, I feel really relaxed. It feels similar to when I was at VCARB. Once I entered hospitality, I was feeling the same, I was only thinking about breakfast. So far I'm not necessarily feeling pressure."
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Tsunoda was at the team's headquarters last week and drove this year's Red Bull in the driver-in-loop simulator. He said the car did not show any nasty traits in the virtual world, but admitted that might change when he hits the track in reality.
"I mean, in the simulator obviously it's not fully correct in terms of trickiness of the car, but at least it didn't feel crazy tricky," he said. "I can feel what the drivers mentioned about the instability or lack of driving confidence.
"I did multiple set-ups that I wanted to try to make it better and those two days seemed pretty productive. I know what kind of direction I want to start and it seems to be a good baseline in terms of overall performance. So yeah, it was a really good simulator session."
Asked if he'd had any words of advice from Verstappen, Tsunoda added: "I think even if I tapped his shoulder and asked about the car, I don't think he's going to say the truth, you know?
"So I just try to discover it myself in the data, how he's driving, also on onboard videos. I already checked multiple videos from him in the last two grand prix.
"Like I said, I didn't feel the trickiness yet - the clear trickiness of the car. I'll feel it myself, and I'm sure it also depends on driving style. It will behave a little bit different."