F1 2025 recap: Yuki Tsunoda’s make-or-break Red Bull F1 chance broke him

There is a pattern when Red Bull’s youngsters get promoted to the main team.

They display confidence that they can succeed where others failed, and they drink the poisoned chalice.

When it came to choosing its 2025 line-up, Red Bull picked Liam Lawson over Yuki Tsunoda. The New Zealander rookie was believed to have more potential, given his promising performance over his five- and six-round stints at Racing Bulls in the previous two seasons.

Then Lawson suffered three Q1 exits in his first two grands prix at Red Bull – 18th in Australia and 20th in both qualifying sessions at Shanghai, which failed to yield any points. The team decided it had seen enough already and gave the job to Tsunoda, who had finished sixth in the Chinese sprint with the sister squad.

“People often say Red Bull cars tend to have strong front-end grip. I personally love cars that turn aggressively, and in the past, I adapted my driving style to that kind of set-up,” is how he reacted to the challenge.

“Racing Bulls traditionally had cars that understeered a bit more, which was challenging for me at first, but I got used to it, and it eventually became my norm. Now, the key will be adjusting to Red Bull’s characteristics again, but considering my past experience, I’m not too worried about it.”

Perhaps he should have been, especially given he was jumping into a new car mid-season. Tsunoda never matched Max Verstappen, with his qualifying deficit six tenths on average in dry conditions.

Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing Team

Too many times, in a car that nearly won the drivers’ championship, the Japanese was eliminated in Q1 – 10 times exactly, with another nine Q2 exits over 27 sessions at Red Bull.

F1 2025 qualifying head-to-head: Final stats after Abu Dhabi GP

This obviously made his life harder in races, and Tsunoda scored just 30 points while Verstappen accrued 385 over the same 22 rounds.

It is quite telling that over 1,386 laps in 2025, Tsunoda spent just 230 in the top eight positions.

Some days were better than others as Tsunoda finished sixth in Baku and seventh in Austin, but those highs weren’t high enough that Red Bull would think, ‘This is the right person for the job’. And some of the lows were shockers, like Tsunoda’s dismal Red Bull Ring race, which he finished two laps down after a collision with Alpine’s Franco Colapinto.

It didn’t help that the 25-year-old just couldn’t explain his lack of pace. The term “strange” and its synonyms were uttered with a worrying consistency in his media interactions.

So Red Bull did what Red Bull will do: Tsunoda was demoted to a reserve role for 2026, with an impressive Isack Hadjar promoted to Red Bull. This isn’t the end, Tsunoda has promised, vowing to prove he deserves a spot on the grid. But at this point, his future may be out of his hands.

What's next for Yuki Tsunoda after his F1 exit?

To read more Motorsport.com articles visit our website.