The past week has been a whirlwind for Yuki Tsunoda. Racing Bulls CEO Peter Bayer learned the previous Friday of Isack Hadjar’s wrist injury and a potential driver change, yet Tsunoda revealed he only received the call on Tuesday—while still on a beach in Greece.
Immediate readiness despite limited track time
The Japanese driver emphasized he was physically fully prepared for the stand-in appearance, though adapting to the 2026-spec machinery remained a significant question mark. While Tsunoda has extensively tested the Red Bull car in the simulator this year, he had not driven the Racing Bulls challenger prior to the Dutch Grand Prix weekend.
Strong showing at Zandvoort
Despite the limited preparation, the race weekend at Zandvoort went remarkably well. Tsunoda stayed close to teammate Arvid Lindblad’s lap times throughout, qualified 12th in both sessions, and finished the race 11th—just ahead of Lindblad.
“Honestly, I think I was able to progress faster than I expected. I drove only four times out of eight months since my last race in Abu Dhabi. And with that, I did pretty well,”
Tsunoda said after the race.
He acknowledged the adjustment from the ground-effect cars he had grown accustomed to over recent years to the current specification was substantial. At an energy-sensitive circuit like Zandvoort, energy management was not the deciding factor, yet the transition still presented challenges.
“I think the most challenging part was pretty much everything – a lot of things, learning about deployment, buttons, everything, all procedures are different. And this race was also challenging because of tyre degradation, the degradation characteristic was also very different,”
he explained.
“So it was all about how to adapt to that, but honestly, the team supported me a lot. They made it easy for me to drive as fast as possible. It’s a shame that I didn’t score points, but I take it. I was fighting against top eight or top nine until the last few laps, I would say.”
Future ambitions: F1 return remains Plan A
The obvious follow-up question concerns Tsunoda’s future. Ahead of the Dutch GP, he had already indicated Formula 1 remains his primary goal, but stressed he does not want to spend another year on the sidelines.
“Teams have to decide if they want me or not, but they should!”
“I know what I can do and I think I pretty much showed what I can do to most of the paddock,”
he added.
“With just one race, a couple of sessions, I was able to fight close to the points. Honestly, I think the outcome was… obviously, scoring points [would have been] better, but I think I did as much as I could.”
Before the Racing Bulls opportunity arose, Tsunoda appeared to be targeting IndyCar for 2027 if no F1 door opened. His Zandvoort performance demonstrated he can still be an asset to any midfield team under the current, complex regulations.
“It’s definitely better having this opportunity, rather than not having any opportunity, so not being able to show what I can do with these regulations,”
he noted.
“The rest is up to my manager and other teams who have not decided yet about next year’s line-up, if they want to have me or not, but they should,”
laughed the driver with 112 F1 starts to his name.
A direct appeal to team principals
When asked by Motorsport.com whether his chances of a full-time F1 return had increased after the weekend, Tsunoda paused for seven seconds, looked up, and laughed: “That’s cheeky, huh?”
After another pause of more than 15 seconds, during which he consulted the Racing Bulls press officer on how best to answer, Tsunoda made a light-hearted appeal to F1 teams for 2027 as he walked away: “Call me, please!”
