Yuki Tsunoda discussed his future with Red Bull Racing ahead of the F1 Dutch GP. The Japanese driver swiftly replaced Liam Lawson at the senior Red Bull team two races into the 2025 F1 season. Tsunoda made his debut with Red Bull Racing at the 2025 Japanese GP.
Unfortunately, Tsunoda has struggled with the car similar to his second-seat predecessors, scoring points in three out of twelve races. Tsunoda aims to improve his performance at the F1 Dutch GP.
Car upgrades at F1 Belgian GP helped Tsunoda find pace
Tsunoda received crucial floor upgrades to his car ahead of the F1 Belgian GP. This upgrade came from new Red Bull Racing Team Prinicipal Laurent Mekies, who previously worked with Tsunoda at Racing Bulls.
Despite failing to score points in Spa and Budapest, Tsunoda claimed he felt more comfortable with the car’s pace. He put in a lap within two tenths of Verstappen during qualifying at the F1 Hungarian GP.
Tsunoda continued to express optimism about his pace ahead of the F1 Dutch GP.
“I think the last two races before the summer break went pretty well in terms of the pace. I mean, probably in terms of results, you couldn’t see that much. I mean, usually you just see the results, but I think the pace itself was pretty good after I had an upgrade.
“There’s a lot of things that we learned that first half of the season after joining Red Bull, and, especially the relationship and understanding between the engineers now, it does get much better.
“I’m ready to keep going the second half of the season strong.”
Tsunoda needs to show “good performance” for 2026 Red Bull Racing contract
Tsunoda’s future at Red Bull is uncertain ahead of the F1 Dutch GP. Many are speculating Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar could replace him for 2026. The Japanese driver expressed confidence that the new upgrades helped show his pace in comparison to teammate Max Verstappen.
“I mean, yeah, definitely have to show a little more. But actually, the last two races before summer break, that helped a little bit.
“Probably, they didn’t recognise that much, especially Helmut [Marko], the difference between me and Max [Verstappen] in terms of the package differences. And as soon as I introduced that [upgrade package], my pace suddenly, pretty much improved.
“Having upgraded, the difference between me and Max was very small since practice. And that shows that, actually, maybe there’s some potential.
“I think I just keep what I’m doing, but also at the same time, you still have to put it all together throughout the week. You can’t just only rely on the pace. I need to score points. So that’s why I just need to score points as much as possible.
“In terms of time, we kind of agreed on what kind of time we are looking for. We need to show a good performance in order to let them decide what kind of contract they want for next year.”
Tsunoda emphasizes importance of simulator work during summer break
Ahead of the F1 Dutch GP, Tsunoda discussed how the team worked to improve the quality of their simulator sessions. He explained that improvements to the simulator will help him find a solution to the car’s optimal set-up.
“I think we just did more like usual preparation. It’s just, obviously if you do extra simulation work, it’s better correlation for next time you’re doing the simulator.
“The gap between Hungary and the Netherlands is quite big. So for them in order to prepare the simulation session, not just for me, for Max [Verstappen] as well, it’s better to have ideas of what they can improve from the simulator to make a better quality simulation session or actual simulation that they want to do before the race week.
“I think there’s some things that we want to improve. We have it in the simulator before summer break and they fix it. And the actual simulation we’ve done this weekend, and this week, I think Max [Verstappen] had a better quality session. Also we try to obviously find some qualities how we can improve.”
