Follow us on Google Discover Yuki Tsunoda has had the most difficult season of his F1 career in 2025 with Red Bull, and the Austrian constructor has finally admitted what the real ‘problem’ is behind his struggles in the current campaign.
Despite spending the majority of the season at the frontrunning Red Bull outfit, Tsunoda is currently experiencing the second-worst season of his F1 career.
The Japanese driver has claimed just 17 points across the 16 race weekends he has entered as a Red Bull driver, a minuscule amount when compared to his counterpart in Max Verstappen, who has 237 in the same span of time.
Due to the poor results during the fifth year of his F1 career, Tsunoda has been told that he’ll be lucky to have an F1 seat in the upcoming season, but Red Bull’s latest discovery may turn out to be the reason he survives the onslaught.
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Photo by Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty ImagesRed Bull have finally accepted that the RB21 is the ‘real problem’ behind Yuki Tsunoda’s 2025 struggles
Even with Verstappen sitting in third place of the drivers’ championship with half a chance of securing his fifth consecutive title, Red Bull currently occupy the fourth spot in the constructors’ standings, much to the delight of F1 rival, Lando Norris.
However, according to a report from Motorsport.com, Tsunoda has been at a disadvantage throughout the current campaign due to the fact that he is driving ‘unequal machinery’ to his teammate, as well as having an engineering team who are ‘oriented’ around servicing Verstappen’s car as a priority.
The Austrian constructor now ‘fundamentally accepts’ that the RB21 is actually the issue at hand, and not the ‘number-two driver’, which in this case, is Tsunoda.
Tsunoda’s struggles have at least had one positive outcome, in that Red Bull now fundamentally accepts its car has been the problem rather than the number-two driver.
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Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty ImagesYuki Tsunoda’s future at Red Bull hangs on their assessment of Isack Hadjar’s readiness for the step up
The report also goes on to note how Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko usually assesses the strength of their second driver by setting them a challenge of being within ‘three tenths’ of Verstappen’s lap times.
It looks highly unlikely that the team will clinch another constructors’ championship if their drivers have a gap that exceeds this number to one another.
Position Constructors’ Standings PointsPts 1 650 2 325 3 300 4 290 5 102
Seeing as the RB21 has started to play ball a bit more with Verstappen at the wheel, Red Bull are seeing if Tsunoda is able to ‘make the leap’ and start recording results in races that mean very little in the grand scheme of things.
The report states that Tsunoda’s future in the team currently hangs on Red Bull’s decision on Isack Hadjar’s maturity, and whether or not he is ready for the step up to a frontrunning team.
Hadjar has already stated that he is ready for Red Bull, but he will have to wait and see if they trust his judgement.