Yuki Tsunoda Blames Red Bull First Impression For 2025 Rejection

Saajan Jogia | Jan 6, 2025

Oct 18, 2024; Austin, Texas, USA; Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team driver Yuki Tsunoda (22) of Team Japan walks through the paddock area before practice for the 2024 US Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images / Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

VCARB driver Yuki Tsunoda believes the first impression he created at Red Bull when he joined its junior F1 team in 2021 stood in the way of his promotion alongside Max Verstappen after Red Bull parted ways with Sergio Perez last year. Instead, Tsunoda's former teammate Liam Lawson, despite having less Formula 1 experience, was promoted to the Milton Keynes outfit.

The Japanese driver aimed to secure a Red Bull seat for a long time and even claimed last year that he could offer tough competition to Max Verstappen in the championship. Tsunoda even drove Red Bull's RB20 F1 car in the post-season test and the team offered positive updates about his technical feedback.

While Red Bull team principal Christian Horner revealed that Lawson's ability to perform under pressure got him the seat alongside the four-time world champion, Tsunoda believes he made significant progress over the last four years and worked on his weaknesses. However, he believes the first impression he created of himself holding a bad temper and providing unspecific technical feedback worked against his Red Bull promotion. Speaking to Motorsport.com, he explained:

"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.

"It creates a bit of image of who I am.

"[In 2024], even though I was performing well, I feel like didn't I 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."

However, Tsunoda feels there is scope to improve on his technical feedback in terms of consistency and emphasized he could have performed better in some of the races throughout the season, although he outperformed his older teammate, Daniel Ricciardo in most races until the Australian driver was replaced by Lawson after the Singapore Grand Prix. Tsunoda added:

"I would say the communications side has improved, mainly my language on the radio.

"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, and we weren't able to improve our car with upgrades and actually Haas and other competitors started to overtake our car performance."

Despite the events that unfolded throughout 2024, the 24-year-old driver appreciated the support he received from VCARB. He said:

"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.

"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."