Ricciardo finally starts showing form against Tsunoda

Part three of our F1 team mate head-to-heads series looks at how the RB drivers measure up against each other so far.

Red Bull’s decision to keep the under-performing in Sergio Perez their line-up has to be seen partly as a judgement on the performance of the two drivers in their second team.

Had either Yuki Tsunoda or Ricciardo consistently beaten the other, would Red Bull have considered giving them a chance in Perez’s car?

The possibility Ricciardo might return to Red Bull was clearly a factor in their decision to hire him after his early exit from McLaren at the end of 2022, then eject Liam Lawson from RB mid-season last year to make way for him. But only now, 12 months on, is he showing signs of becoming the team’s leading driver.

Over the opening races of the season it was all about Tsunoda. Before RB took a wrong turn with their car development, spearheading their runs into the lower reaches of the points positions, doing so five times over the first eight rounds.

This was the kind of performance Tsunoda needed to start showing in his fourth season of F1. But any hopes he might get to replace Perez for 2025 was dashed when Red Bull extended his contract two months ago.

Following speculation Red Bull could activate an early exit clause in Perez’s contract and replace him during the summer break, the team again confirmed he will remain in the car. But by the stage the winds had shifted at RB.

Ricciardo’s radio messages at times sound like a near-constant stream of pointers, advice and recommendations from race engineer Pierre Hamelin. They appear to be having the desired effect, as his performances compared to Tsunoda have clearly improved over the last half-dozen races.

Rightly or wrongly, Red Bull give the impression of not being fully convinced by Tsunoda, while prepared to wait and see if Ricciardo will unlock the key to regularly repeating the kind of form he produced in the Miami sprint race this year or Mexican Grand Prix last year. That sense that the peaks of the RB are higher than either driver are regularly hitting is perhaps why both are going nowhere for the time being.

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Ricciardo vs Tsunoda: Season summary

Ricciardo vs Tsunoda: Race-by-race

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Unrepresentative comparisons omitted. Negative value: Ricciardo was faster; Positive value: Tsunoda was faster