Daily News 19

Tag: 2027 driver market

  • Yuki Tsunoda Reveals Biggest 2025 Mistake, How Red Bull Struggles Made Him a Better Driver

    Yuki Tsunoda Reveals Biggest 2025 Mistake, How Red Bull Struggles Made Him a Better Driver

    Tsunoda’s Unexpected Return to Racing Bulls

    Yuki Tsunoda has enjoyed a surprise three-race cameo in 2026, slotting into Racing Bulls in place of Liam Lawson following Isack Hadjar’s injury. While it remains unknown whether Tsunoda will get a fourth outing this season, the Japanese racer has certainly made the most of his unexpected comeback.

    Reflections on a Difficult 2025 Season at Red Bull

    Tsunoda is Red Bull’s reserve driver this season, having lost his race seat at the end of last year. After being promoted to Red Bull from the third round of the 2025 season, Tsunoda struggled to make much of an impact and was resigned to playing a support role in Max Verstappen’s championship bid.

    Speaking on the latest episode of official F1 podcast Beyond the Grid, Tsunoda explained just how tough 2025 was for him, after many years of relative success at Racing Bulls under their various guises, and exactly what he felt was his biggest mistake.

    “One thing about myself I think, if I say [being] completely honest, I have a big enough ego to not change my driving style,” Tsunoda said. “I know what I’m doing in terms of driving. I believe in myself, so I never try to change my driving style to other drivers, even though the driver is competitive and fast.

    “Obviously Max, it’s a different case, he’s a World Champion, he proves a lot of things and I still learn a lot of things from his driving. [It was] probably the first year out of any years since I started that I thought about changing driving style and tried to do something similar to Max.

    “But in my perspective, if I just look at data, I didn’t really see a huge difference in terms of driving. What I think now is the biggest mistake in last year was to try to replicate the set-up what he’s doing.”

    Tsunoda scored just seven times out of the 21 Grands Prix he contested with Red Bull, in a car that Verstappen took to second in the championship. The comparison between the two late in that season was stark, with Verstappen winning five of the final eight races, while Tsunoda in the same period recorded a P6, P7 and P10 finish.

    That resulted in Tsunoda losing his seat, with Hadjar promoted from Racing Bulls to replace him.

    “When I got told, I still remember, I didn’t feel that much of huge disappointment or devastated feeling. Obviously, still disappointed and pretty sad that I’m not driving next year. But not as I expected, I don’t know why.

    “I fought really hard. I fought more than ever in that 2025 year, more than ever. And even if I look back now, I don’t have much regret. I gave everything and the outcome is something I didn’t like, obviously, but honestly, I just gave everything.”

    Lessons Learned and a Strong Comeback

    Tsunoda believes the struggles he went through in 2025 have made him a better driver, and he has impressed for Racing Bulls.

    In a new generation of cars, which are very different from what he drove last year, Tsunoda has done well in the three races he has contested – especially in Zandvoort, where the Sprint format meant he only had one practice session to get used to all the changes.

    “Going back to this Netherlands story, jumping into the car that I’ve never driven, Sprint Qualifying format, team is doing really well, you know, running P5 in Championship, [knowing] that you can’t really mess up for the race, you want to have points,” he added.

    “Somehow, I was like really, [feeling] okay. I didn’t feel anything, that much, of pressure.”

    Tsunoda finished 11th in Zandvoort, one place ahead of his team mate. But he then finished 10th at Monza to pick up a point for the team and help them in their fight against Alpine.

    “The feeling I had, crossing the line, finishing P10, is definitely a bit more special P10 than certainly last three years of my career. Felt like really similar feeling towards first time I scored points in AlphaTauri [in my] first year.

    “I felt very valuable, [more] than usual. I was so happy, team are happy, and the kind of moments that you can celebrate with the team – that we had a good race weekend – is something I didn’t have for a while. It was a very nice moment.”

    Future Aspirations for 2027

    As to Tsunoda’s future, he is still trying to secure a full-time drive for next season. But it is a tough ask, with very few open seats left available.

    “My primary focus is F1. I’m trying to be back. That’s my target and I’m not thinking anything else. For myself, it’s fortunate that I got opportunities so I try and maximise it and hope I can be back in 2027.”

    To listen to this week’s episode of Beyond The Grid, simply hit go on the audio player above or click here to listen via your preferred podcasting platform.

    You can also check out a huge selection of previous episodes – spanning every decade of F1 – in our dedicated Beyond The Grid library.

    You can also watch the podcast on the F1 YouTube channel.

  • Yuki Tsunoda Pitches F1 Return With “Call me, please!” After Impressive Dutch GP

    Yuki Tsunoda Pitches F1 Return With “Call me, please!” After Impressive Dutch GP

    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!”