New Delhi: “It can’t get crazier than this situation,” Yuki Tsunoda tells F1.com, reflecting on the current scenario.
On February 18, Liam Lawson was unveiled as Red Bull’s second driver beside four-time world champion Max Verstappen at London’s O2 Arena amid much fanfare. With only 11 races under his belt, the New Zealander was chosen above Tsunoda, who has been slogging it out in the sister team (now known as Racing Bulls) for four straight seasons.
The 23-year-old Lawson definitely showed potential in his 11 Grands Prix, finishing in the points thrice despite not having a quick enough car under him which led the Red Bull management to believe that he can be a perfect fit beside Verstappen.
But just two races into the season, Lawson was dropped after two uninspiring drives in Australia and China where he failed to earn any points.
Formula 1 is a tough sport for a driver to survive. Red Bull is even tougher. Over the years, we have seen several drivers being promoted and demoted ever since eight-time race winner Daniel Ricciardo left the Milton Keynes based outfit at the end of 2018.
Since then, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and now Lawson have come and gone. Only the experienced Sergio Perez was able to survive for four seasons. But while Perez was up to pace — but never close to Verstappen — in his first three years at Red Bull, 2024 was nothing short of disastrous.
Not only did he not win a race in the entire year, the Mexican finished a lowly eighth in 2024 when his teammate won the world championship with the same machinery.
The fact of the matter is that the Red Bull isn’t the easiest car to drive. “For me, it was very simple, the car is just quite difficult to get 100% out of it, to get the confidence out of it — and the things I struggled with, even Adrian (Newey, the team’s former design chief) talked about them,” Perez tells F1.com.
What makes it tougher for the second driver is that the car is designed around Verstappen, who has brought Red Bull back to the top after a decade, since the winning days of Sebastian Vettel which was followed by the dominance of the Lewis Hamilton-Mercedes era.
The Dutchman prefers a much sharper front end which automatically makes the rear end wobbly. Most drivers prefer a balance to get a perfect setup, to make their vehicle drivable with speeds exceeding 350kph.
For a common man to understand how that works, a sharper front end means hiking up the sensitivity of your mouse which will then start darting across your screen, as Albon, who reached the podium twice in the Red Bull, explained in a podcast recently.
Now, Tsunoda is stepping into the unknown. He has seen former teammates Gasly and Lawson preferred over him over the last couple of years only to witness them get demoted. Now, he is stepping into their shoes.
The Japanese driver has come a long way since his indisciplined ways as a hot-headed youngster who would be yelling expletives over the team radio, who had speed but was erratic, often going off-piste or crashing, leading former AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost to force him to shift to the team base in Faenza, Italy.
Red Bull are known for their timing. They were heavily criticised in 2016 when they demoted Daniil Kvyat, replacing the Russian with Verstappen at the Spanish Grand Prix. And as they say, the rest was history. Verstappen fended off two fiery Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel to become the youngest winner in F1 at 18 years and 228 days.
This time around, Tsunoda will be making his Red Bull debut at his home Grand Prix in Japan in front of his adoring fans at the iconic Suzuka Circuit.
Twenty other Japanese have driven in F1 with Hiroshi Fushida being the first one way back in 1975. Satoru Nakajima became the first Japanese to earn points in 1987 and Aguri Suzuki became the first to reach the podium in 1990.
But never before has any Japanese driver raced for not just a top team but in a car that won the drivers’ world championship the previous year. Though it is a daunting task for Tsunoda to master the Red Bull, it is also a brilliant opportunity to become the first Asian driver to win a Formula 1 race.
“I can’t wait (to drive alongside Verstappen). He’s one of the best drivers… the best driver probably on the current grid. I’ll just learn as much as possible from him, how he’s driving, how he’s able to extract the performance from the car, so let’s see,” says Tsunoda.
The question is, can Tsunoda succeed where most of his predecessors failed?
