The 25-year-old was even left bewildered by his struggles, especially when he previously felt comfortable on the wet tyre but did not have the same feeling in Vegas.
“We didn’t expect to use the extreme tyres,” said Tsunoda. “I’m just three seconds off compared to any other drivers. Clearly I was missing something, because I was literally driving on ice, so I don’t know what’s happened.”
Verstappen shared the same feeling regarding the grip, though he felt more comfortable on the wet tyre than when it was time for intermediates come Q3.
“It was really, really slippery out there,” said the four-time world champion. “It’s already slippery in the dry but in the wet – yeah, it’s not fun, I can tell you that.
“I like to drive in the wet. This felt more like driving on ice, so it took a long time to get the tyres to work a little bit.
“I do feel that maybe we were a little bit more competitive on the extreme tyre, but the track is improving, so you have to move on to the inter and I struggled a lot just to have any kind of grip.”
Additional reporting by Filip Cleeren
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