Yuki Tsunoda can call himself a (temporary) Formula 1 driver again after the summer break. The Japanese driver races for Racing Bulls as a replacement for Liam Lawson, who is filling in for the injured Isack Hadjar at Red Bull. In the Beyond the Grid podcast, the driver looks back on his time at Red Bull and why this period was not a success for him.
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Tsunoda was promoted to Red Bull at the third race in 2025, his home race in Japan, due to disappointing results from Lawson. However, like his predecessor, the Japanese driver was unable to impress with the Red Bull throughout the season. His best result was a sixth place in Azerbaijan.
Tsunoda struggled with his RB21 and still does not know what caused this. “Normally I can understand the car and discover its characteristics, but in this case, even after Abu Dhabi, I didn’t know what kind of car I had driven. I still don’t know what the problem was, why I had so much trouble with it, and why I couldn’t understand it.”
“I thought the confidence was there sometimes, but at a certain point, I just completely lost it,” Tsunoda concludes. “One thing I know about myself: ‘I have a big enough ego to never adjust my driving style.’ I know what I’m doing when I’m driving, and I believe in myself.”
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Copying
Still, Tsunoda looked up to teammate Max Verstappen and did review his data. “What I often did and probably the biggest mistake was trying to copy Verstappen’s setup. I did this even when I thought the car was too oversteering and knew that Verstappen’s setup would make it worse.”
“Where Verstappen was definitely better than me was in how the car reacts to a corner or kerb and sensing that. If he makes a sensitive or sharp turn or something along those lines, he can, so to speak, smell and feel it in the car and intervene much faster than I can. And he can still maximize everything that happens with the car.”
In Qatar, the second-to-last race of the season, Tsunoda found out that Red Bull would not continue with him. “When I was told, I didn’t feel the huge disappointment I expected. I have fought harder in no year of my career than in 2025, and I have few regrets about things I have done. I gave it my all.”
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Read everything about the Azerbaijan GP here
