Yuki Tsunoda: “It feels like everything is against me”
Red Bull will announce its driver line-up for the 2026 season after the Qatar Grand Prix, but one driver is facing a challenging period: Yuki Tsunoda. The Japanese driver endured another disappointing weekend, impacted both by a qualifying error from the team and a strategy that ultimately did not work as expected.
Yuki Tsunoda’s journey with Red Bull seems to be nearing its end, with the Milton Keynes team confirming they will reveal their 2026 line-up following this weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix. Tsunoda began with high expectations, but he quickly found himself in a reality where, like his predecessors, many have struggled to succeed.
This trend has continued this season, inevitably opening up questions about his future. Yuki Tsunoda was fully aware of this at Las Vegas, where he openly expressed his concern about what lies ahead. While he has not yet made a significant mark during his brief and much-anticipated stint with Red Bull, it is equally true that several external factors have not been in his favor.
Looking back, Tsunoda has often lagged behind in development, partly due to incidents he caused himself. At the same time, the impact of team errors cannot be ignored, which have significantly affected his performance and limited the points he has collected, especially in recent races.
At Las Vegas, Tsunoda started 19th on the grid after Red Bull mishandled tire pressures during qualifying, a critical factor where proper tire warm-up is essential. The team then broke parc fermé rules, changing the car setup and fitting a fresh engine to finish the season. However, this is not the first time Yuki has paid a high price for team oversights.
The same situation occurred a few weeks earlier in Mexico, when the team held him back to benefit Max Verstappen’s first stint, combined with a long pit stop, costing Yuki Tsunoda the chance to finish in the points in what was likely his best race of the season.
It is fair to say that Yuki Tsunoda’s performances have rarely met the team’s expectations, but these errors form part of a recurring pattern that, while often unnoticed, has significantly affected his ambitions.
After the U.S. Grand Prix, the Japanese driver highlighted the role of bad luck. Starting from the pit lane, he pitted on the first lap to switch from medium to hard tires, only for the Virtual Safety Car to neutralize the race shortly after, allowing two rivals to gain an advantage.
Tsunoda was one of the few to attempt a two-stop strategy, which did not pay off. He finished 14th, later promoted to 12th following the McLaren disqualifications. The Japanese driver was also unsatisfied with the setup changes made to his RB21.
“The problem was that the safety car came out immediately after my pit stop, so it wasn’t ideal. What we were trying to achieve was to get out of the dirty air, but the safety car came out and several drivers rejoined ahead of me, so no points,” Yuki Tsunoda explained after the race.
Despite this, Yuki Tsunoda managed to beat both of his direct rivals who had pitted at the same time, finishing 16 seconds from the points. “It feels like everything has gone against me so far: luck and everything else. I don’t like talking about luck, but this weekend was really unfortunate. It’s a shame and frustrating not to have exploited my pace in qualifying. Just wasted,” he admitted.
Yuki Tsunoda believes that without the Virtual Safety Car placing him in traffic, finishing in the points—battling with Haas and Lewis Hamilton—would not have been impossible: “I lost so much time because of that [Virtual Safety Car].”
The Japanese driver tried to focus on positives after such a disappointing weekend, leaving him 17th in the drivers’ standings, while teammate Max Verstappen boosted his championship bid with another victory. “At least we changed the engine: that’s something to look at with confidence for the upcoming races. I hope it’s an advantage; I think it’s working better than what we had before. We need to qualify well, but it seems so.”
“At least I showed multiple times in qualifying, from FP1 to FP3, that I was performing well against Max, and I was ahead of him several times [in Las Vegas]. That’s something we hadn’t seen, and I hadn’t experienced in a long time. That’s a positive to take. The remarkable thing about Max is that in qualifying he can take everything to another level. But I had confidence, more than in any other Grand Prix. Yes, it’s really a shame. But there was potential, now I have to repeat it in Qatar.” – the Japanese driver concluded at the end of the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
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