Tsunoda on the myths and reality of F1 perception problem

Yuki Tsunoda remains onboard at Racing Bulls for a fifth season in 2025 after being overlooked for Red Bull promotion, with the less experienced Liam Lawson instead being backed by Red Bull management to take up the difficult second seat alongside Max Verstappen.

Ever since he was originally announced for 2025, at the Canadian Grand Prix weekend, the 24-year-old has been adamant he is ready for Red Bull promotion and more deserving than other candidates. His record against Daniel Ricciardo and then Lawson would support that, scoring 30 of the 46 points earned by RB and being the lead driver in 18 qualifying sessions.

At the time, Sergio Perez had just penned a new Red Bull deal, but his continued struggles have forced Red Bull into its latest swap as the hunt for Verstappen’s perfect team-mate goes on.

But it has long been apparent that there has been little Tsunoda could do to convince Red Bull’s Christian Horner and Helmut Marko that Tsunoda can be that person. Arguments like his temper, inconsistency and relatively lacklustre technical feedback have been long held against him.

While Tsunoda has definitely been a work in progress, the Japanese feels he has improved on all those areas over his first four years in F1, but it appears the lingering perception of his strengths and weaknesses has been hard to shake off.

Speaking to Autosport, Tsunoda feels not having made the best first impression when he entered the sport is still hanging over his career like a shadow.

“I think that part of it is kind of my fault because I wasn’t really able to perform straight away in the first year,” he said. “It creates a bit of an image of who I am.

“[In 2024], even though I was performing well, I feel like I didn’t get really get credit as much as probably other drivers get, but it is what it is. I just naturally, just keep what I’m doing and performing well and just prove them wrong.

“I just try to give them fewer excuses or reasons why I am not in the seat. So, I just focus on what I can control, those things other than that, just accept the situation. I’m sure I can do a better job than what they are thinking.”

Tsunoda feels he has made significant progress in all his weaker areas over the past 12 months, even if Racing Bulls’ up-and-down form throughout 2024 hasn’t often allowed its drivers to grab headlines. But that doesn’t mean complacency has seeped in over the steps he can still make on a technical level.

“I would say the communications side has improved, mainly my language on the radio,” Tsunoda said. “The calmness, I would say, is also definitely improved, more technical feedback, more focused. I can definitely feel the improvement throughout the year and I’m very happy with it. What I have to improve more is still the technical feedback, especially the amount of feedback you can give in the race, I think I definitely can say more, and sometimes it’s not really consistent.

“For us, it was more difficult to consistently show our performance. Even though you have a good performance, sometimes the car’s performance doesn’t really follow that. But still, I’m pretty happy with the consistency so far. I always say I could have done a couple of races much better, but I showed I’m pretty consistent.

“I started really well, and I was in the points pretty consistently, because also the car was pretty good. At some point, we weren’t able to improve our car with upgrades and actually Haas and other competitors started to overtake our car performance.”

Red Bull’s loss may remain its sister team’s gain for now, as Racing Bulls appears delighted to keep hold of Tsunoda for another year while it further reorganises the team and moves into its new Milton Keynes unit, alongside its venerable Italian headquarters in Faenza. Tsunoda says he has felt “massive support” from Racing Bulls’ management Laurent Mekies and Peter Bayer.

“To be honest, I don’t really care much about what people are saying on social media, because they don’t know what exactly happening,” he said. “It only matters what the team thinks about me, and I feel definitely a massive support from the team. They understood every race what happened, and definitely I got a lot of trust from them. That’s what always matters and I really appreciated those efforts from them.”