Last Updated on January 22 2025, 1:32 pm

Yuki Tsunoda will be the first F1 driver sacked this season says 1997 Formula One champion Jacques Villeneuve. The Japanese driver is entering his fifth season in F1 for the Red Bull sister team and will connote alongside rookie Isack Hadjar.

“Tsunoda will be the first driver to leave the grid,” Villeneuve told the Action Network. “He’s only there because of Honda. At some point this will stop.” Liam Lawson being promoted ahead of Tsunoda despite the New Zealander’s relative ack of experience was a surprise to many senior paddock observers but both Dr. Helmut Marko and Christian Horner were on hand to explain the decision.

“In terms of speed, Tsunoda is definitely the faster of the two at the moment,” Dr, Marko told Bild Sport., but noted “he lacks the necessary consistency and continues to make mistakes.” Marko admitted Red Bull were concerned Tsunoda “slows down and loses his composure” when he gets rattled. “His outbursts of anger have improved considerably but remain an issue,” said Marko. “He loses control.”

 

 

 

Horner questions point of Tsunoda 5th year

Christian Horner appeared to dismiss out of hand any reason for Tsunoda to remain into his fifth year with the team. “We’re acutely aware that if we’re not able to provide an opportunity for Yuki [at Red Bull] in all honesty this year, does it [keeping him on] make sense?,” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner told assembled reporters at the Lawson announcement.

“You can’t have a driver in the support team for five years. You can’t always be the bridesmaid. You’ve either got to let them go at that point or look at something different.” Well Christian the maths demonstrates Yuli is about to enter his fifth year, something you say ‘we cannot have?”

Whether Villeneuve et al are correct and Tsunoda’s position is no longer tenable appears to have been missed by Red Bull who have ploughed on regardless. To suggest Tsunoda is there just for one final year as an appeasement to Honda seems a tin foil hat conspiracy just one bridge too far. Honda are off to Aston Martin and were forced to renegotiate their supply of F1 power units with Red Bull having decided to pull out of F1 for 2022, before changing their collective minds.

The racing director for the RB team, Alan Permane now speaks to Autosport in a positive fashion over the coming year for Yuki Tsunoda but suggests there are more junior drivers around him from whom he cold learn. With just 46 Grand Prix to his name (Yuki – 87) Permane holds up the example of McLaren’s latest find, Oscar Piastri.

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Permanent shows Yuki Verstappen video

Discussing first Tsunoda’s at times radio panic mode, Permane says: “When he [Yuki] gets frustrated he then gets frustrated at himself for getting frustrated. He knows it and he’s working hard on that.

“I said: ‘Listen to Oscar on the radio.’ He’s in his second year and he never gets flustered or anything like that. And he’s clearly very quick. You rarely hear Lando [Norris] getting frustrated, and that’s the level you need to get to.”

Permane explain they offer training to Tsunoda in terms of his psychological development even comparing and contrasting his radio messages compared to some of his competitors.

“One of the things we did was playback the Brazil race, a massively intense situation, and Max and his engineer are just like they’re having a cup of coffee in the afternoon together,” revealed Permane. “That’s the benchmark and all that information is out there for these guys to work on, and that’s one of the areas we’re working on with him.

“There are hundreds of things they need to do and that’s just one small area. But he’s right in spotting that when things aren’t going well he just needs to come in and download.”

Hamilton rumour now confirmed

 

 

 

Piastri calmness personified

Oscar Piastri clearly demonstrated Permane’s point at the final round of the 2024 season in Abu Dhabi. At th start world champion Max Verstappen tagged the rear of the McLaren seeing Piastri into a spin as the field filed by on the opening lap. The Red Bull driver was to receive a red second penalty from the stewards, yet Piastri’s reaction was both cutting and minimalistic. “Yep, move of a world champion that one,” the young Aussie reporters to his team.

Tsunoda by contrast lost the plot towards the end of Q1 at the Austrian Grand Prix. He screamed down team radio, “these guys are f***ing retarded” after being overtaken in the pit lane by Zhou Guanyu, as Tsunoda queued in the fast lane and the Sauber driver was waved out by a mechanic.

The stewards hit Yuki with a relatively severe fine of €40,000 and the incident was reminiscent of one involving the current quadruple F1 champion back in 2020. There he described Lance Stroll as a “retard” and a “mongol” over team radio following a practice session  for the Portuguese Grand Prix.

Wolff’s game of “blink first” is finally over

 

 

 

Max escapes penalty for similar insult

Verstappen later said, “I don’t say that the words I chose were the right ones” and that he “never intended to offend anyone”, but did not provide a full apology. The Red Bull driver was not sanctioned by the FIA or his team over the matter, which prompted Mongolia’s Ambassador to the UN to demand a full apology.

Clearly Mongolia are so unimpressed by the F1 skills of Lance Stroll they find it offensive he be compared to one of their countryman. Yet Horner is right, what is the point of retaining Yuki Tsunoda for a fifth year at RB?

Clearly the decision between promoting Tsunoda or Lawson was not unanimous at Red Bull, and maybe Horner believes they will yet need Yuki to replace Max’s new team mate should he fail to cope with the pressure.

Marko makes Verstappen announcement

 

 

 

F1 ladder exposed by other single seater series

Formula One considers itself to be the pinnacle of motorsport and in terms of a single seater racing series, not other championship comes close to the global appear of F1. North America’s premier single seater racing championship pulls around 7 million views per race while F1’s latest figures suggest their TV audience is in excess of 70 million each race weekend.

Of course the legendary Indianapolis 500 is part of the Indycar racing series, yet the fact the teams spend the month of May at the circuit preparing for the ‘big one’ makes it almost an event which stands alone from the championship.

For decades Formula One’s regulatory body the FIA has attempted to build a ladder which facilities kids in karting all the way to becoming a Formula One driver with Bernie Ecclestone formalising the international series below F1 as GP3 and GP2 back in 2006…., READ MORE