{"id":323521,"date":"2025-12-02T21:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T21:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/323521\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T21:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T21:05:08","slug":"yuki-tsunoda-claims-predecessors-havent-managed-what-he-has-in-red-bull-f1-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/323521\/","title":{"rendered":"Yuki Tsunoda claims predecessors haven’t managed what he has in Red Bull F1 seat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yuki Tsunoda<\/a> stated that he didn\u2019t think \u201ca normal driver can live with it in my seat\u201d at Red Bull, days before the announcement that he would lose his seat for the 2026 Formula 1 season.<\/p>\n

The Japanese driver made the comments immediately after the Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday, in which he finished 10th, two days before the formal announcement that he will not be retained by the Milton Keynes-based squad<\/a> as a full-time racer for next season.<\/p>\n

After taking the number two seat alongside Max Verstappen from the Japanese Grand Prix in April, Tsunoda has often been unable to get close to his World Champion team-mate.<\/p>\n

Mitigating circumstances have contributed to this, such as the overall uncompetitiveness of the RB21 during the earlier part of the season, his carrying of older parts on the car compared to Verstappen, and, of course, the high bar set by Verstappen\u2019s own driving levels.<\/p>\n

This is something Tsunoda was quick to point out to media including Motorsport Week in Doha.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean especially the last three races, the team gave me a lot of support and [I was] able to drive with [an] almost identical car to Max, and I think within that I proved a\u00a0lot of things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think since I had an identical car, I was always within two,\u00a0three tenths and even last weekend [in Las Vegas], consistently FP1 to FP3, there was multiple laps\u00a0I was ahead of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday,\u00a0Sprint Qualifying [in Qatar], able to help him and finish ahead of Max in qualifying, Sprint qualifying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cQualifying was a bit of a shame, but within that worst case, I was still three\u00a0tenths behind and three tenths behind [is] normally qualifying by top five.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RedYuki Tsunoda will be replaced by Isack Hadjar [inset] at Red Bull next year<\/p>\n

Others failed to be \u2018consistently able to get this close\u2019 to Verstappen at Red Bull \u2013 Tsunoda<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s Sprint saw Tsunoda line up fifth on the grid, one place ahead of Verstappen \u2013 the first time he has outqualified the World Champion in their time as stablemates.<\/p>\n

Between Daniel Ricciardo\u2019s exit and Sergio Perez\u2019s arrival at Red Bull, Verstappen was often a fair distance ahead of both team-mates in that time: Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon.<\/p>\n

Perez\u2019s latter stages at the team were fraught with a vastly growing gap between himself and Verstappen, amid the RB20\u2019s downturn in form in 2024.<\/p>\n

Tsunoda believed that, under the circumstances, he was able to get closer to Verstappen than his predecessors, having taken over from Liam Lawson after just two races.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo yeah, I think I\u2019m showing what I can do,\u201d he continued, \u201cand I don\u2019t think within my seat [others have] consistently [been] able to drive like this\u00a0close.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least what I remember, last few years, I didn\u2019t see much drivers like this,\u00a0able to achieve like this step in the middle of the season and went through\u00a0very, very difficult moments with the beginning of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah, I think it\u2019s just\u00a0a matter of now, I\u2019ll try to help Max next race. But, like I said, [the] pace is there\u00a0and I don\u2019t think a normal driver can live with it in my seat yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE \u2013 Red Bull reveals new Yuki Tsunoda role as he loses F1 drive<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yuki Tsunoda stated that he didn\u2019t think \u201ca normal driver can live with it in my seat\u201d at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,806,805,803,804,15196,85,5077],"class_list":{"0":"post-323521","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-motor","12":"tag-motor-sports","13":"tag-motosport","14":"tag-motosports","15":"tag-redbull","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-yuki-tsunoda"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323521","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=323521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}