Yuki Tsunoda is now in his fifth season in Formula One after his big break came when Honda struck a deal for him to race for the Red Bull junior team in 2021. He replaced Daniel Kvyat and became the third Japanese driver to pilot a car from the Faenza based team, his predecessors when its name was Minardi.
Tsunoda’s rookie year statistics do not make conforatbke reading as Pierre Gasly outclassed the Japanese driver scoring 100 points to Yuki’s 32. Further Gasly was on average over six places ahead of Tsunoda in qualifying although in Grand Prix finishes the gap was five positions in favour of the Frenchman.
Alpha Tauri’s performance deteriorated in 2022 and so naturally the gap between the team mates was closer. Then in 2023 Yuki had two team mates across the season. He was comfortably ahead of the unfortunate Nyck de Vries, but when Daniel Ricciardo arrived there was little to split their performance.
Tsunoda overlooked as Perez replacecement
Tsunoda out performed Daniel Ricciardo across the eighteen rounds of 2024 when they were teammates, before Liam Lawson stepped into the team and again Yuki was on average two places ahead of the New Zealander in qualifying and the same margin in the Grand Prix.
Given Red Bull had decided to not recruit externally to replace the outgoing Sergio Perez, it seemed natural that Tsunoda would get his big break alongside Max Verstappen. Yet for no apparent reason it was decided to give Liam Lawson the promotion, something Red Bull reversed after just two Grand Prix weekends.
Yuki has comfortably been the worst of Max Verstappen’s team mates, scoring just eleven points across fifteen rounds before Baku. Since then he has more than double his Red Bull tally to 28 points, but still languishes behind the first full season rookies of Lawson, Bearman and Isack Hadjar.
Yuki spat with Lawson in Austin
Yet the pressure on the Japanese driver has become increasingly evident and his most recent spat with Liam Lawson is proof both drivers know its one or other of them for next season. As Yuki battled to make it to the line to set a final lap time in SQ1 in Austin, he felt Lawson had impeded him.
“With Lawson, it’s just the usual story. He’s always doing something on purpose, and it’s b*******, so it’s him. I don’t care about him, to be honest,” said Tsunoda after qualifying just P18 for the Sprint. Lawson later stated he had “absolutely no idea what he’s talking about”.
Tsunoda revealed in Mexico he had apologised to the Racing Bulls team but again in Mexico had another poor weekend. In practice three he was less than two tenths behind his team mate Max Verstappen, but come qualifying he again failed to make it into Q3.
Starting P10 after Carlos Sainz suffered a grid drop, Yuki made up two places at the start and was ahead of Piastri for a number of laps. Yet eventually his slower medium tyres meant he was forced to accept an overtake from the McLaren driver, although it looked almost too easy as Tsunoda failed to defend the inside line.
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A shocker in Mexico
Running later than those around him for his first stop, Tsunoda was to suffer from a shocker of a pit stop from the Red Bull race crew. He lost around ten seconds whilst stationary the pit lane and trailed home around two seconds behind Garbiel Bortoletto in 11th place and for no cigar.
A downbeat Yuki was clearly frustrated in the media pen after the Grand Prix. “Today was easy points, we just threw it away,” said Tsunoda. “It is what it is, it’s still racing. The positive is the pace was pretty okay, so something to take.
“Just keep progressing and keep learning, and that is what I’m doing. But this kind of situation, missing out on points that were easy, and we could take today, P8, P7, I don’t know. Frustrating,” he concluded.
Yuki went on a bit of a rambling discourse about the things which were outside of his control in Mexico, in almost a desperate plea for the team not to count this outing against him. “It felt like he knows the writing is on the wall”, said Jacques Villeneuve.
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Mekies: “his best weekend….”
Yet team boss Laurent Mekies came to the rescue of the Japanese driver, in what he described as “his best weekend in a long time.”
“It was very, very close in quali to Max,” Mekies explained. “I think it was two tenths in Q2. Today, the first stint was very, very strong as well, two tenths, three tenths to Max on the same very long first stint on the medium.
Despite these words of comfort, there is an elephant in the room in the form of British-Swedish Racing driver Arvid Lindblad. He is the latest rising star from Dr. Helmut Marko’s junior driving programme and was present in Mexico as he took over Verstappen’s car in FP1.
With nine junior drivers driving in FP1, Linblad was by far the quickest finishing sixth overall and a tenth ahead ahead of Tsunoda in the sister car. Admittedly the team’s run plan for the young hopeful did not include high fuel runs, which made is easier for him to settle into a kind of qualifying mode.
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The Lindblad band waggon is rolling
Team principal Laurent Mekies praised Lindblad after the session: “I think he did a great job. It’s so difficult to step up in FP1. It’s very different these days, as you don’t have many tyres and you don’t have many laps. But he did a very good job.
“You have seen all the timesheets by yourself, but he was very calm and gave all the right feedback. He didn’t put a foot wrong, and he didn’t break the car! So, honestly, he has impressed us on that FP1. No question about that. And we look forward to the next time [of having him] in the car towards the end of the year,” concluded the Red Bull boss.
Its questionable whether with such a huge FUA ruleset change coming over the 2026 cars and their power units whether a team should blood a rookie. New kids on the block Cadillac have shown the way by recruiting two experienced drivers and elsewhere the driver lineups are expected to remain the same.
Red Bull like to gamble
Franco Colapinto has been enjoying something of a revival of form at Alpine, and his only challenger would be rookie Paul Aron.
Jacques Villeneuve believes its time to pull the plug on Tsunoda’s career, stating “he’s just not good enough,” on more than one occasion. And with Honda leaving their partnership with Red Bull Racing for 2026, the influence of Tsunoda’s main sponsor in Milton Keynes is now gone.
Despite a number of mistakes coming into Lindblad’s recent F2 racing it seems Red Bull are on course to blood the rookie next season. The argument for retaining the experience of Tsunoda appears now moot, given his awful season alongside world champion Max Verstappen.
Piastri’s decline: The analysis
It all looked so good just five race weekends ago for Oscar Piastri. At the Dutch Grand Prix the Australian entered the exclusive Formula One drivers’ club – there Grand Chelm – by claiming pole position, fastest lap and leading from lights out to the chequered flag.
Jim Clarke leads this iconic group of drivers with eight Grand Chelms and of the current drivers Lewis Hamilton and Max Vertsappen each have six – Max’s latest in Baku this season – Fernando Alonso, Charles Leclerc and now Oscar Piastri have just one.
A Grand Chelm is particularly difficult to achieve as Lando Norris found out last weekend in Mexico. Although he claimed pole position and led every lap, it was George Russell who claimed the fastest lap of the race, by a whopping 7/10ths of a second from the McLaren driver who was clearly looking after his tyres…. READ MORE
A.J. Hunt is Senior Editor at TJ13, where Andrew oversees editorial standards and contributes to the site’s Formula 1 coverage. A career journalist with experience in both print and digital sports media, Andrew trained in investigative journalism and has written for a range of European sports outlets.
At TJ13, Andrew plays a central role in shaping the site’s output, working across breaking news, analysis, and long-form features. Andrew’s responsibilities include fact-checking, refining editorial structure, and ensuring consistency in reporting across a fast-moving news cycle.
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