Yuki Tsunoda is a case, much like Liam Lawson before him—who lasted just two Grands Prix in Red Bull before being sent back to Racing Bulls—and Sergio Perez. No need to look further back, or the list would get long. Every teammate of Max Verstappen ends up… being crushed in the comparison with the four-time world champion.
The 25-year-old Japanese driver is no longer a rookie: he has 98 starts over five F1 seasons. He was developed within the Faenza satellite structure, heavily backed by Honda. After some youthful overexuberance, Yuki reached a decent level of maturity, earning the call to Milton Keynes to replace the prematurely dismissed Lawson. He had resented not being Marko’s first choice, and today, perhaps, he regrets not staying with Laurent Mekies’ team.
In Barcelona, while Max Verstappen was trying to keep up with the McLarens, Tsunoda qualified last, falling into a free fall. Speculation immediately began about a possible replacement by rookie Isack Hadjar.
The Frenchman is performing very well in the VCAR 02, and it makes sense to give him time to mature at Faenza, while Yuki Tsunoda gets the opportunity to bring his performances back in line with expectations.
The RB21 is a very demanding car, even for Max Verstappen. Helmut Marko, usually extremely tough on drivers, offered an interesting perspective on Yuki, starting with Max himself:
“To be competitive, Max has to drive at the limit every lap, and you can see that even he struggles in certain situations against the McLaren cars. That gives you a sense of what’s happening with Yuki Tsunoda, who is experiencing what Max’s former teammates did. Only he can manage this car. Our car now has a wider operating window and, when everything works perfectly, we’re as fast as McLaren. But that only happens every three or four races, while McLaren is always there.”
Tsunoda is in serious trouble. What are you doing to improve the situation, considering he’s not doing better than Liam Lawson? In seven Grands Prix with the RB21, he’s collected 7 points. He’s currently 15th in the Drivers’ Championship, including three points earned with Racing Bulls.
“Actually, in some ways, Yuki’s situation is better than Lawson’s: during free practice, he’s sometimes just a tenth off Max. But once qualifying begins and Verstappen gives everything, Yuki can’t keep up. And in trying to compensate for the difference, he makes mistakes.”
Instead of attacking him like he did with Lawson, Marko offered the Japanese driver some mitigating circumstances…
“Another thing not to overlook is that our cars are often a mess on Fridays, and we only manage to sort them out before qualifying. Significant setup changes are often needed: Max adapts immediately, but Yuki needs a few laps to build confidence—and there just isn’t time for that when qualifying starts.”
The Austrian manager, in short, explained why Tsunoda ended up last in Spain…
“We hope he can improve. It’s worth noting that in Barcelona he didn’t have the same technical specifications on his RB21 because of the heavy crash he had at Imola…”
Yuki had flipped his car at high speed at the Variante Villeneuve, destroying it during qualifying…
“It takes about three weeks to produce a new floor, so he had to race with less updated parts since there simply wasn’t enough time to manufacture the necessary spares. Just on car performance, Yuki was losing two to three tenths.”
Haven’t you considered that Max Verstappen needs an experienced teammate to help score valuable points for the Constructors’ Championship?
“When we signed Pérez, Hülkenberg was also under consideration. But then Pérez won in Bahrain and convinced us. In the beginning, Checo was good—he even won races with us. But over time, things unraveled. We need someone mentally stable. A driver who focuses on his own performance and doesn’t try to beat Max. That’s where they all fail—when they try to stay on his pace.”
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