Yuki Tsunoda is in uncharted waters that no Red Bull-affiliated driver has ever been in over the almost 20 years that the brand has been a major player in Formula 1.
No driver has ever gotten a fourth consecutive season in Red Bull’s second team to begin their F1 career until Tsunoda this season. And after his team activated the 2025-season option on his contract, Tsunoda will remain at the team now known as RB again into next year.
The only way Tsunoda would have convinced Red Bull to keep him as a race driver in their ecosystem is if he had demonstrated he had improved as a driver over the last 18 months. And so far, in his first full season racing alongside a much more experienced, multiple grand prix winner in Daniel Ricciardo, Tsunoda has more than held his own.
Tsunoda had a strong start to his season. He out-qualified Ricciardo in the first four grand prix qualifying sessions of the season and would have finished ahead of his team mate in each of the first three races, had the team asked Ricciardo to hand the position back Tsunoda surrendered to him in the closing laps in Bahrain.
His weekend Down Under was excellent. Qualifying an impressive eighth on the grid, Tsunoda put in a very strong drive on Sunday in Albert Park which included an enjoyable pass on former team mate Pierre Gasly to score his first points of the season in eighth – which became seventh after Fernando Alonso’s post-race penalty. Even more decent showings followed in his home round in Japan, another seventh place in Miami to add more valuable points to his team’s total, Another top ten followed in Imola, before yet another solid weekend in Monaco rewarded him with eighth.
After Monte Carlo, Tsunoda sat in a very respectable tenth place in the championship, ahead of Lance Stroll and 14 points clear of Ricciardo in 14th. At this point, he was clearly the driver with the upper hand in his own team. But then his form appeared to slump slightly.
Yuki Tsunoda
| Best | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP start | 8 (x3) | 20 |
| GP finish | 7 (x2) | 19 |
| Points | 22 | |
Two bad performances in Montreal – where a late spin undid a lot of good work he had done up to that point – and Spain – where he struggled for race pace with the team’s new ‘upgrade’ package and made the silly error of speeding in the pit lane – appeared to take some momentum out of his season. He failed to bounce back in Austria, where he was again behind Ricciardo, then looked like a rookie by spinning out during the opening…
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