Why Yuki Tsunoda’s Red Bull F1 destiny is still something he can control

Yuki Tsunoda has said the question over whether he’s doing enough to hold onto his Red Bull seat for F1 2026 is not one he can answer himself, as he seeks to prove that he’s the right driver to sit alongside Max Verstappen.

Tsunoda is coming into the final third of a season in which he has largely struggled to keep pace with Verstappen, leading to uncertainty over whether or not he’ll be in the seat next year.

Yuki Tsunoda fighting for F1 career extension with Red Bull

Now in his fifth season in Formula 1, Tsunoda finally landed a prime seat within the Red Bull stable earlier this year – the chance to prove that it had been the wrong call to promote Liam Lawson to the senior team instead of him.

Despite his inexperience, Lawson was given the nod of the two Racing Bulls drivers to step up alongside Verstappen this year, but after two race weekends in which he toiled around at the back of the field, the decision was taken to swap Lawson and Tsunoda.

This might have been the wiser option in the first place, given Tsunoda’s far greater experience and the fact that it would have given both drivers the chance to carry out full pre-season preparations with the teams they swapped into just a few weeks into the season – a setback that both drivers have had to work hard to recover from.

But while Lawson appears to have found his feet this season as he’s adjusted to the Racing Bulls car vacated by Tsunoda, the same can’t be said for the Japanese driver.

Despite his experience and usual dependability in the midfield, Tsunoda has become the latest driver to be completely baffled by the apparently incredibly unique characteristics of the Red Bull and languishes in 19th place overall – the two Red Bull drivers almost book-ending the field as Verstappen is in third place in the championship.

On 230 points after 16 race weekends, Verstappen’s points tally dwarfs that of Tsunoda’s paltry 12; three of these points were scored while still in the Racing Bulls car, further highlighting just how little he’s managed to do across the 14 race weekends in an apparently far more competitive machine.

The gulf between the pair is far bigger than the performance deficit that cost Sergio Perez his drive last year.

And with Honda parting ways with Red Bull at the end of this year, the writing could be on the wall for Tsunoda as he continues to seek a performance or result that will signify some progress in understanding the RB21.

But that moment hasn’t yet come and time is rapidly running out.

At Monza, Tsunoda was almost eight tenths of a second down on Verstappen in Q3 and, in the race, finished 81 seconds behind his teammate.

While Verstappen was taking a triumphant third win of the year, Tsunoda meandered home in 13th place.

This result wasn’t helped by the sustaining of floor damage from a collision with Lawson, with the pair making contact at the second chicane.

This damage likely made a far bigger difference than the different floor specification Tsunoda was running, compared to Verstappen’s updated iteration.

“I got distracted by Lawson, who made [contact with me], and that was quite big. I picked up damage, and that was big enough to slow me down quite a lot, so very frustrating and very unnecessary for me,” Tsunoda told media including PlanetF1.com.

“I haven’t heard the specific details, but it’s not even like a few points [of downforce]; it’s really, really big.

“I was gaining one second per lap, and he started last, and he was not even fighting for points. I don’t know.

“If you’re fighting for points, I can understand because, even with a sister team, we’re enemies.

“But at the same time, there’s a line you can’t cross, and I mean, what’s the point? I was fighting for points, and he wasn’t. I don’t know what to say.”

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There were signs earlier in the weekend that Helmut Marko is losing patience with Tsunoda, with the Austrian dismissively saying, “Yuki, Yuki, Yuki,” in response to a question from a journalist after practice on Friday, before suggesting that the Japanese driver has a “mental” block when it comes to qualifying, urging him to “stay calm, stay normal,” when it comes to a flying lap.

Explaining that he can’t tell yet whether Tsunoda will or won’t be driving the car next year at the same time, Marko made his displeasure further evident when he spoke to journalists on Sunday evening following Tsunoda’s clash.

“There was an unnecessary collision with Lawson,” he said. “I don’t know how bad the damage was. His pace, there was no pace.”

The 82-year-old was more critical in his comments when speaking to Sky Germany.

“The collision with Lawson from our own team was incredibly stupid,” he said. “It seems to have damaged the car severely.”

As for Tsunoda himself, it’s clear from his demeanour when talking to the media that things can’t get much worse for him, leading to an emotionless matter-of-fact approach when asked questions about how he’s handling the predicament he’s in.

“It’s not easy, but at the same time, you just have to do it, you know?” he said after his Monza results.

“Like, it’s a tough situation. At the same time, I think quali laps are getting better and better – there are some positives.

“I’m closer this weekend, in terms of short runs – until Q2, I was consistently behind Max by two tenths. We know there’s a different floor.

“It’s getting there. Obviously, in long runs, I can work on a bit more. It’s not easy, but I just have to keep fighting and just chin up and believe in myself.”

Last year, Red Bull left it until the end of the season to decide to put an end to the Sergio Perez saga, feeling the need to try something different for this year.

What 2025 has shown is that the problems for the second driver at Red Bull certainly aren’t unique to Perez, and the fact that Tsunoda scored points quickly in the VCARB before completely falling off the boil in the Red Bull indicates there is something disproportionately unusual about the demands of the car that means even experienced hands like Tsunoda’s are completely lost behind the wheel.

While Marko may not appear hugely impressed by what he’s seeing from Tsunoda, new Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies is taking a different attitude, and says he believes the Japanese driver is on a “positive trend” in recent races.

“Yuki has been making a good step in the last three races,” he said heading into the Monza weekend.

“We all want more, but he’s doing a good job. He was, for the first time, back in the points after seven races in Zandvoort.

“He was close enough to Max in Budapest, and had his best qualifying with the team in Spa. So he’s on a positive trend.”

But while Tsunoda may have sympathy and empathy from Mekies, who explained that what he most wants to see from his driver is an improvement in race pace, the simple fact of the matter is that the breakthrough performance hasn’t yet come – and time is rapidly running out.

“Short-run pace, I think, was a very good sample for Yuki,” Mekies said. “Long-run pace, it’s frustrating not to have clean race data.”

Paddock whispers suggest that Isack Hadjar is very much the favourite to step into the Red Bull next year and, indeed, well-placed sources have even suggested the French driver has already been told the drive is his to lose – although, if this has happened already, Marko has indicated a decision is yet to be made.

“We’ve extended the options, or rather, the drivers have extended them with us,” Marko told Sky Germany after Hadjar’s podium at Zandvoort.

“So, around September or October, we want to have a few more races to observe, and then we’ll make the decisions.”

Addressing speculation about Hadjar during Friday’s press conference, Mekies said: “It’s obviously extremely nice to watch Isack’s progress in the Racing Bulls car.

“To see him performing at the level he did in the last race was a fantastic demonstration of how much progress he’s made this season.

“But really, we are relaxed about the driver topic, because fundamentally we have all our cards on the Red Bull side, and we can take a few more weeks – or months – to decide.”

But perhaps offering a clue as to what the thinking might be, Mekies hinted that change could be afoot and a decision could come before the end of the season.

“Of course, that doesn’t mean we have to wait until the last race to decide,” he said, “because we respect that it might impact our drivers one way or another. But for sure, we feel we have time right now.”

If change isn’t coming, then the impact on the drivers would be minimal – aside from, perhaps, Arvid Lindblad, as the F2 driver seeks to step up into F1.

Is Tsunoda entering the final stages of what has been a storied half-decade with the company in F1?

From his very first outings in F1, with the then-AlphaTauri team, Tsunoda has had to fight hard to impress his employers – kicking off his career with a fiery temper and a poor attitude towards radio messages, general fitness, and a lack of diligence which his former team boss, Franz Tost, addressed when speaking to ServusTV last weekend.

“Yuki is very good in terms of speed, but maybe that’s the problem,” Tost said.

“He has always impressed with very good performances in the lower classes, both in Formula 3 and Formula 2. It all fell into his lap.

“I’ve always told him: ‘Yuki, you have to work in Formula 1.’ If I drive five tenths to one second slower than my teammate, then I stay in the paddock day and night, or study the data until I know why I’m slower.

“And you still have to take Yuki there. He is talented, but unfortunately, he is not zealous enough, not diligent enough to compensate for his shortcomings.”

Damning with faint praise, then.

Certainly, Tsunoda is past the point of trying to plead his case via the media and, instead, is taking a pragmatic approach – either he does enough to keep the seat for next year by way of strong performances… or he doesn’t.

Time doesn’t appear to have quite run out for him, perhaps helped by the fact that Mekies has worked directly alongside Tsunoda and knows that he’s capable of more than he’s showing at present, but this extra audition time is rapidly depleting.

“Whether it’s enough or not enough is up to them,” Tsunoda told the media after Monza, having admitted to taking his time in considering the verbiage of his answer.

“I’m just squeezing the performance from the current package I’ve got.

“I’m just pushing every single [room] that they gave me, [to prove] that I’m able to make the progress race by race, really.

“But also at the same time, we need the points. That’s something that we can see clearly on the paper, and that’s what I’m working on.

“So overall, I don’t know. It’s up to them. I’ll just keep pushing.”

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