Yuki Tsunoda Reflects on His Struggle to Unlock Red Bull’s 2025 Formula 1 Car

It seems almost unimaginable for a title contender’s teammate to finish 17th in the Formula 1 drivers’ championship, yet that was precisely where Yuki Tsunoda ended up alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull in 2025.

In a sense, the outcome was without precedent. The closest modern parallel might be Felipe Massa sitting 16th eight rounds into the 2012 season while Ferrari teammate Fernando Alonso comfortably led the championship — though the Brazilian ultimately managed to recover. Tsunoda’s situation, however, was entirely its own.

After deciding to part ways with underperforming Sergio Pérez, Red Bull promoted Liam Lawson over Tsunoda for the 2025 seat, believing the New Zealander’s relative inexperience could be compensated by his perceived upside. Yet Lawson barely had time to make his case. Following two grands prix in which he was eliminated in Q1 and failed to score a single point, he was dispatched back to Racing Bulls, finally opening the door for Tsunoda at the senior team.

Liam Lawson, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

At the time, the Japanese driver was remarkably optimistic about his prospects of succeeding where so many others had faltered.

“People often say Red Bull cars tend to have strong front-end grip. I personally love cars that turn aggressively, and in the past, I’ve adapted my driving style to that kind of setup,” Tsunoda said ahead of his Red Bull debut.

“Racing Bulls traditionally had cars that understeered a bit more, which was challenging at first, but I got used to it, and it eventually became my norm. Now, the key will be readjusting to Red Bull’s characteristics, but considering my past experience, I’m not too worried about it.”

Perhaps he should have been more cautious. While Verstappen won eight grands prix — more than anyone, including 2025 champion Lando Norris — Tsunoda failed to secure a single podium finish, his best result a forgettable sixth in Baku; he managed just 30 points compared to his teammate’s 385 over their time together.

Across 27 qualifying sessions (sprints included), Tsunoda reached Q3 eight times, fell out in Q2 on nine occasions, and was eliminated in Q1 on ten. He outqualified his teammate only once and was, on average, 0.6 seconds slower.

So what was wrong with Red Bull’s RB21? To some extent, Tsunoda himself remains unable to explain it.

“Normally I’m able to understand the car, what I’m driving, what kind of characteristics it has,” Tsunoda detailed on the Beyond The Grid podcast. “But it feels like even after Abu Dhabi, I didn’t know what kind of car I was driving. I still don’t understand what the issue was, what made it so difficult to learn and get accustomed to the car.”

“I thought confidence was there, but in some races I somehow lost it. I still don’t understand the car, to be honest.”

Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images

Still, Tsunoda offers fascinating insight. He openly admits he refrained from altering his driving style, believing that approach simply works for him. He did, however, experiment with Verstappen’s setups — and that experiment proved unsuccessful.

“One thing about myself: I have enough ego to not change my driving style,” Tsunoda admitted. “I know what I’m doing behind the wheel and I believe in myself. So I never try to change my driving style to another driver’s, even if that driver is competitive and fast.”

“Obviously for Max, it’s a different case. He’s a world champion who has proven so many things, and I still learn a great deal from his driving.”

“My core driving is the same. At some point — probably the first year of any since I started — I thought about changing my style and doing something similar to Max. But from my perspective, when I look at the data, I didn’t really see a huge difference in terms of driving.”

“What I did most — and what I now think was the biggest mistake last year — was try to replicate the setup he was running. Even knowing that sometimes, if I felt the car oversteer too much, Max’s setup in theory would make it worse, more sensitive in direction changes, or cause it to slide more. I tended to go with his setup even though I was already struggling with oversteer. And it could go the other way too: even when I was struggling with understeer, his car was more understeer-prone. I tried to replicate that regardless.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing Team

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

Tsunoda is far from the first driver to unsuccessfully attempt to mimic Verstappen’s setup. Alex Albon struggled alongside the Dutchman for a year and a half, from 2019 through 2020.

Back in 2023, the Anglo-Thai driver recalled on the High Performance Podcast: “[Verstappen] has a quite unique driving style; it’s not that easy to get along with. Everyone has a driving style. I’d say mine is a bit more on the smooth side, but I like a car with a good front end — so quite sharp, quite direct. Max does too, but his level of sharp and direct is on a whole different level. It’s eye-wateringly sharp.”

“To give people an idea of what that might feel like, if you turn up the sensitivity on a computer game completely to the max and move the mouse, and it just darts across the screen everywhere — that’s kind of how it feels. It becomes so sharp that it makes you a little tense.”

That metaphor was raised with Tsunoda, but he wasn’t entirely convinced it applied to the RB21.

Asked if he could relate, the Japanese racer said: “Yes and no. First, the car is very different from when Alex was driving. And I’ve never driven Alex’s car.

I tend to force the car how I want to drive

“It’s sensitive, but I didn’t feel that sensitive. At the same time, it was very up and down. At some tracks I was driving a more sensitive car than him; at others, he was. On average, he was probably driving a slightly more sensitive, sharper car than me.”

“What he was definitely better at was this: even though the car was sensitive or even numb — in a corner, there’s always a phase or moment where the car naturally reacts or tries to respect its own behavior. As soon as I turned in or whatever, that car did its own thing. It could be a sensitive, sharp rotation or the front sliding or something. He was able to use that and probably sense that kind of behavior much faster than me. He was able to maximize it throughout the corner.”

“It’s not necessarily my driving style, but when I have those kinds of moments — a sharp turn-in, rotation, or front slide — I tend to force the car how I want to drive.

Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

“I normally respect how the car wants to drive through a corner, or I’m able to use that kind of natural behavior from the car. But I wasn’t able to use that ability much in the Red Bull.”

The moment Tsunoda first drove the RB21 in free practice at Suzuka, his early optimism gave way to caution; he reported that the car felt “a bit more tricky” than the simulator had suggested.

In hindsight, it was an omen of the ordeal to come.

“Even though I said I thought I had confidence, it probably wasn’t enough, compared to the VCARB car I drove for four years,” Tsunoda said. “Red Bull was still a completely different car, and I felt that the moment I stepped into it in Suzuka.”

“There was a level of confidence I was able to build up, but to maximize performance, I think that was what I was missing — trying to find that confidence throughout the year.”

I fought more than ever in that 2025 year

Tsunoda eventually learned in Qatar, at the penultimate round of the season, that he would not be retained as a race driver and would serve as a reserve in 2026. Given his results, the news came as little surprise — and the campaign had been so draining that the announcement actually brought him a sense of relief.

“I still remember those moments,” he recounted. “Initially, what I was told was from Helmut [Marko, then Red Bull’s motorsport advisor].”

“In the end, Helmut is the person who brought me into Formula 1, who brought me into the Red Bull junior program. We’d been together since I was 17 or 18. I remember he was pretty disappointed too.”

Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing, Helmut Marko, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Mark Thompson – Getty Images

“When I got the news, I didn’t feel that huge disappointment or devastation. I was obviously still disappointed and sad not to be driving next year, but not as much as I expected. I don’t know why — somehow, I fought really hard that year. I fought more than ever in 2025. Even looking back now, I don’t have much regret. I gave everything.”

“In a way, honestly, my heart was just saying, ‘Okay, now I can be relaxed.’ Because it was so stressful during the second half of the 2025 season, where I fought hard under a lot of pressure. I was never really able to breathe.”

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