Red Bull Racing driver Yuki Tsunoda had another weekend to forget at the Monaco Grand Prix.

What was looking like a very promising campaign for Yuki Tsunoda in a surprisingly fast Racing Bulls car at the start of the year has quickly become a battle of attrition.

Red Bull will be concerned that Tsunoda’s best qualifying performance of the season came at the Australian Grand Prix when he was racing for their sister team.

He’s only reached Q3 on three occasions since his promotion and twice he’s been the slowest driver during that session.

Team principal Christian Horner has described Tsunoda’s qualifying pace as a problem, although he shouldn’t shoulder all of the blame having been given no time to get up to speed with the RB21 during pre-season.

The Monaco Grand Prix is largely determined by qualifying, with Carlos Sainz the only driver to start outside the top 10 who scored a point.

He wouldn’t have done so had Fernando Alonso not retired with an engine failure and as a result, Tsunoda’s P12 start was always going to make life difficult.

So much so, that one senior figure within the Red Bull team couldn’t hide his frustration on the team’s internal channels at the end of the race.

Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Red Bull chief Pierre Wache couldn’t believe how slow Yuki Tsunoda was at the Monaco Grand Prix

Journalist Matt Majendie was speaking on The Race F1 Podcast after spending the Monaco weekend with the team.

Majendie revealed that Red Bull look likely to give Tsunoda until the end of the season to get up to speed, however, his contract does expire during the winter break.

Talking about how Red Bull’s strategy played out, he said: “You had the Yuki situation where obviously he was used in that way, but it didn’t work he really needed to have qualified higher up.

“You saw the teams that managed to bounce off each other well like the Racing Bulls because they were close together on the grid.

“They could work that out brilliantly, which Hadjar and Lawson did a really good kind of double act.

“But [for] Red Bull [it] wasn’t possible to do that.

“There was quite a funny moment where they were sort of holding out at the end for this red flag for both drivers and it could have been a masterstroke.

“They just sort of gave up and then suddenly Pierre Wache comes over the radio and goes, ‘Ah, well, Yuki’s beeping slow anyway,’ and there was a bit of frustration there.

“I felt quite exhausted and exhilarated by the end of it because there’s just so much going on.”

Pierre Wache faces crucial task of giving Max Verstappen a championship-winning Red Bull

Since Adrian Newey departed Red Bull to join Aston Martin, it’s been Pierre Wache’s job to lead the team’s designers to try and bridge the gap to McLaren this season.

Red Bull wanted to widen the operating window of their car this year, however, Tsunoda’s struggles suggest that hasn’t happened yet.

Verstappen’s performances almost have to be taken out of the equation given his ability to drive around problems.

However, he’s so good at this, that Verstappen has misled Red Bull’s development due to his ability to deal with the car in far from optimal circumstances.

There were previously suggestions that Verstappen had lost confidence in Wache, however, the updates the team brought to Imola that saw the Dutchman win the race should see some of those fears subside.

Wache’s frustration with Tsunoda is his inability to get close enough to Verstappen to support his championship bid, as opposed to being in contention to win races.

Racing Bulls and Williams highlighted the tactics that could be used in Monaco in these instances and Tsunoda will have to hope he has a better time at the Spanish Grand Prix.