{"id":185919,"date":"2025-10-08T16:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T16:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/185919\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T16:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T16:58:08","slug":"red-bull-f1-boss-offers-shocking-verdict-on-yuki-tsunodas-worst-ever-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/185919\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Bull F1 boss offers \u2018shocking\u2019 verdict on Yuki Tsunoda\u2019s \u2018worst ever start\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Bull<\/a> F1<\/a> boss Laurent Mekies<\/a> declared Yuki Tsunoda<\/a>\u2019s first lap at the Singapore Grand Prix<\/a> as \u201cshocking\u201d \u2013 with Tsunoda himself admitting it was his \u201cworst ever start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tsunoda, who qualified 13th on the grid while Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen<\/a> started in second, dropped down to 18th after a terrible start, but did recover in the subsequent 61 laps to finish 12th.<\/p>\n

Yet another weekend without a top-10 finish for Tsunoda \u2013 he has only managed points-finishes in two of his last 11 races \u2013 piles even more pressure on the Japanese driver as he looks to save his Formula 1 career.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old is yet to be confirmed by Red Bull for 2026 and speculation is growing that Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar could fill the second seat alongside Verstappen next season.<\/p>\n

At the sister team, where Tsunoda drove from 2021-2024, Arvid Lindblad is a candidate to be promoted from F2 to partner Liam Lawson, but Mekies has noted that he is in no rush to make a decision on 2026 driver pairings. However, he was more forthcoming when asked about Tsunoda\u2019s weekend in Singapore.<\/p>\n

“Today, the first lap was certainly shocking.\u201d Red Bull team principal Mekies told journalists after the race on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut from that point onward, I think he has done a very decent race. I think he came back from P18 to P12 or P11, with a very decent pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we had a very poor Saturday, it’s costing us the weekend and a few points, and we’ll work with him to improve together.”<\/p>\n

Tsunoda is currently 17th in the world championship<\/a> with just 20 points to his name. Verstappen, meanwhile, is positioned in third and has 253 more points.<\/p>\n

\"Yuki<\/p>\n

Yuki Tsunoda is under pressure at Red Bull (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“It definitely was the worst start or the first lap ever in my life.\u201d Tsunoda acknowledged.<\/p>\n

“I can’t still believe what happened in the first lap. Every place I tried to go, every corner in the first lap, I was literally covered or blocked by someone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t know what I should have done there. I’m sure there’s something I could have done better. That for sure made my life very hard afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tsunoda has six more races this season to prove his worth to Red Bull, starting at the United States Grand Prix (17-19 October) in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Bull F1 boss Laurent Mekies declared Yuki Tsunoda\u2019s first lap at the Singapore Grand Prix as \u201cshocking\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,13492,3006,3803,35477,101,56,54,55,7942],"class_list":["post-185919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-laurent-mekies","tag-max-verstappen","tag-red-bull","tag-singapore-grand-prix","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-yuki-tsunoda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}