Ever since purchasing the Minardi team back in 2005 to transform them into what was then Toro Rosso, Red Bull have been fairly consistent in their philosophy when it comes to the young drivers they place in their second team.
Only drivers worthy of remaining for a full season are afforded that privilege. Only those who deserve a second year, get one. A select few may get the special honour of a third season. But typically, if you fail to prove yourself ready for a step up into Red Bull’s senior team at the end of your third season, that will be the end of the line for you.
So when Yuki Tsunoda was offered a third season at AlphaTauri in 2023, all signs pointed to this being a make-or-break year for the young Red Bull prospect. Although he was ultimately as unspectacular as he had been in previous seasons, he appears to have convinced Red Bull that he is still worth investing in beyond 2023.
Tsunoda spent his first two years in Formula 1 with a much more experienced team mate in Pierre Gasly. While being outscored and generally outperformed over both seasons by Gasly was to be expected, Tsunoda demonstrated an unfortunate habit of making some major mistakes – even into his second season. But heading into 2023, Gasly had departed and now Tsunoda was the senior driver at in Faenza. Even if his new rookie team mate, Nyck de Vries, was five years older than him and a Formula E world champion.
Unlike his first two seasons, AlphaTauri lacked the performance required to regularly fight for points in 2023. But despite his car’s relative lack of pace, Tsunoda managed to knock on the door of points by finishing 11th in each of the opening three rounds of the season. However, thanks to Carlos Sainz Jnr’s post-race penalty in Melbourne, 11th there became 10th and he had finally been rewarded for his efforts. The next round in Baku, another 10th place finish brought a second point, before he took another 11th place finish in Miami.
Although his results over the opening phase of the season had not set the world alight, Tsunoda was not only demonstrating exactly the kind of consistency that he should have in his third season, but he was also emphatically out-performing De Vries alongside him. But then in Austria, flashes of the old Tsunoda began to show. Over the three days of the sprint weekend, he made notable errors in each one, earning 20 seconds’ worth of time penalties in the grand prix to finish…
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