“I’m not enjoying life” – How Yuki Tsunoda’s Red Bull F1 stint “exhausted” him

Tsunoda’s Brutal Red Bull Audition: A Midseason Promotion With No Preparation

Yuki Tsunoda’s 2025 Formula 1 campaign stands as a case study in the unforgiving nature of Red Bull Racing’s second seat. Promoted from Racing Bulls midseason to partner four-time world champion Max Verstappen, Tsunoda stepped into the RB21 without a single prior lap in the machinery—a disadvantage compounded by the team’s condensed development cycle. While Sergio Perez endured four seasons in the role and Liam Lawson lasted merely two grands prix, Tsunoda received a nearly full campaign to prove his worth. He finished 17th in the drivers’ championship, while Verstappen narrowly missed a fifth consecutive title by two points, underscoring the performance gap that has defined the Milton Keynes squad’s driver lineup dynamics for years.

Mental Toll: Exhaustion, Isolation, and a Loss of Passion

Speaking candidly on the Beyond The Grid podcast, Tsunoda laid bare the psychological erosion that accompanied his on-track struggles. The 26-year-old described a progressive breakdown of his usual coping mechanisms, where familiar reset rituals—good food, downtime at home—ceased to restore his energy as the season wore on.

“Definitely, 2025 was the toughest year in my career, and I learned heaps of things,” Tsunoda said. “I’m the kind of person, as soon as I had good food or whatever, I was able to reset myself between the race weeks. But I started to really struggle, towards the second half of the season especially; somehow when I came back to my house, I felt very exhausted.”

The exhaustion deepened into existential doubt. Tsunoda recounted a growing inability to recharge, a relentless schedule that offered no respite, and a creeping realization that the joy driving his career had evaporated.

“Normally I’m able to reset myself, get back this energy after I had something that I really like, if I do something that I really like. But I didn’t feel that energy, [it] never came back, and the races just kept going and going, going, going. I had so much up and down, and at some point I just recognised myself that I’m not really enjoying my life, I would say, like I’m not really enjoying the situation, not really enjoying driving Formula 1 probably as much as I was doing the first three years.”

Confronting the Root Cause: Distance from Home and Professional Support

Tsunoda traced the crisis to a factor he had overlooked since his formative European racing years: geographic and emotional separation from his support network in Japan.

“So, it was a very tough time, and outside of racing, try to solve this issue, right? What can I do to help that? And if I look back, is there something else other than eating food or this stuff? What makes me happy? And normally it’s friends, but mostly friends in Japan and… Okay, I really recognised, actually I’m away from Japan. That I really never thought about since probably my first year in F3.”

He sought professional intervention—psychological support, trainer guidance—but the punishing second-half calendar limited the space needed for recovery. “Okay, this is tough, something that I have to resolve myself. I got help quite a lot with psychology, trainer and a lot of things, but the race [schedule] was pretty busy in the second half, so it was a pretty tough time. But at the same time, the year gave me the opportunity to look myself through a lot more than any other years.”

Demotion, Reserve Role, and an Unexpected Return

The organizational fallout was swift. Ahead of the 2026 season, Red Bull promoted Isack Hadjar to the senior team and handed Arvid Lindblad his Formula 1 debut at Racing Bulls, relegating Tsunoda to a reserve driver role across both squads. Fortune intervened during the summer break when Hadjar sustained a wrist injury, prompting Lawson’s temporary elevation to Red Bull and creating a vacancy at Racing Bulls. Tsunoda seized the opportunity, contesting the final three grands prix starting at Zandvoort.

The reprieve revealed a transformed competitor. Tsunoda reported a newfound comfort under pressure, crediting the 2025 crucible for recalibrating his mental framework.

“Not sure I’m gonna have that much pressure and struggle, difficult times, as much as I had in 2025,” he added. “So everything comes so far with big challenges. Somehow I’m able to enjoy that kind of pressure moments and I feel very comfortable. Jumping into the car that I’ve never driven, spring qualifying format, VCARB team’s doing really well, running P5 in the teams’ championship – you can’t really mess up for the race, you want to have points. Somehow I was like, I really feel okay, I didn’t feel that much pressure.”

Asked whether any future challenge could match 2025’s intensity, his answer was definitive: “I don’t think so.”

Why This Matters

Tsunoda’s experience illuminates the human cost of Red Bull’s high-stakes driver development model, where the second seat has become a revolving door of talent unable to withstand the Verstappen benchmark. The team’s 2026 lineup shuffle—elevating Hadjar and Lindblad while retaining Tsunoda in a reserve capacity—signals a continued willingness to cycle through candidates rather than stabilize the pairing. For Tsunoda, the season represents a pivotal career inflection: a driver who confronted the limits of his resilience, sought structured psychological support, and emerged claiming a durable mental upgrade. His return to Racing Bulls for the season’s closing rounds, where he operated without the paralyzing pressure that defined his Red Bull stint, offers a tangible measure of that growth. The broader paddock will watch closely whether this psychological recalibration translates into sustained on-track performance in 2026, particularly if Tsunoda secures a full-time drive again.