{"id":313138,"date":"2025-11-27T23:21:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/313138\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T23:21:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:21:11","slug":"formula-1-yuki-tsunoda-says-he-knows-red-bull-fate-but-cannot-share-before-qatar-grand-prix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/313138\/","title":{"rendered":"Formula 1: Yuki Tsunoda says he knows Red Bull fate, but cannot share before Qatar Grand Prix"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, when Lawson was demoted from Red Bull to Racing Bulls <\/a>after two races, that payment was understood to have been doubled. <\/p>\n

However, Honda is departing Red Bull for Aston Martin at the end of this season, leaving Tsunoda\u2019s future in doubt<\/a>. At present, Red Bull have only Max Verstappen confirmed in a seat for next year.<\/p>\n

It is understood that Isack Hadjar, Lawson\u2019s Racing Bulls teammate, will be promoted to Red Bull next year, with his spot in the junior side to be filled by Formula Two prospect Arvid Lindblad.<\/p>\n

That has left Tsunoda and Lawson battling for the final seat<\/a>. The Kiwi holds an eight-point lead over his rival heading into the Qatar Grand Prix this weekend.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Red Bull senior adviser Helmut Marko gave a deadline of the Mexican Grand Prix to decide<\/a> on the two teams\u2019 driver lineups. After Mexico, that decision was pushed back<\/a> until after Qatar. <\/p>\n

Now, with that decision imminent, a despondent-sounding Tsunoda has revealed he knows something about his future that he cannot disclose. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know something that I can\u2019t share with you guys,\u201d he said. \u201cBut probably most people know it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m [of] a similar understanding as you guys. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s see.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the time since Red Bull updated its timeline to decide the 2026 drivers, Tsunoda has also been linked with the American IndyCar series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With Honda supplying engines to five of the IndyCar championship\u2019s 12 teams, a free seat at Dale Coyne Racing has opened up at the perfect time for Tsunoda, who has also said he will not accept a role as Red Bull\u2019s reserve driver.<\/p>\n

As well as that, Lawson was also used by Ford<\/a> – who will make Red Bull\u2019s engines from 2026 – in promotional material, after this year\u2019s US Grand Prix in Austin.<\/p>\n

According to Marko, the decision to delay the lineup announcement was to allow Red Bull to concentrate on supporting Verstappen as he chases a fifth successive title. <\/p>\n

The world champion trails McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris by 24 points, with three races \u2013 two grands prix and a sprint \u2013 left this year.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, Tsunoda says he\u2019s only concentrating on his team\u2019s objective.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m only thinking about this race. The decision is not made yet, it\u2019s still in my hands. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll try to support Max as best as possible. If I\u2019m able to achieve that, that will be positive for my future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll only aim for that, and let\u2019s see where the season finishes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Qatar Grand Prix begins at 5am on Monday (NZT).<\/p>\n

Alex Powell<\/a> is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this year, when Lawson was demoted from Red Bull to Racing Bulls after two races, that payment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[13808,64,63,21575,69125,24696,28541,817,56958,31960,813,816,38857,1642,36687,177298,38858,16260,5122,102587,4215,21569,85,47855,316,149484],"class_list":["post-313138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-13808","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-before","tag-bull","tag-but","tag-cannot","tag-f1","tag-fate","tag-formula","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-grand","tag-he","tag-its","tag-knows","tag-prix","tag-qatar","tag-red","tag-said","tag-says","tag-share","tag-sports","tag-tsunoda","tag-what","tag-yuki"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}