Yuki Tsunoda admits even Red Bull cannot explain some of his problems

The Japanese driver says he has run into some “difficult to understand” issues with the RB21 that even his Red Bull team cannot explain

Yuki Tsunoda has been struggling since his promotion to Red Bull Racing, picking up just nine points since making the step-up. The Japanese driver is now under pressure, and Helmut Marko has named the Mexican Grand Prix at the end of October as a reference point – meaning the next three race weekends will be ‘crucial’, according to Tsunoda.

Isack Hadjar currently stands on pole-position for promotion to the senior team in 2026 and Tsunoda himself did not rule out a return to Racing Bulls while speaking to the media ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

He knows the main area of improvement: race pace. Tsunoda has made progress on Saturdays and managed to reach Q3 in Monza – which Red Bull expects of him – but over a full race distance the situation looks much more worrying. The picture is somewhat the opposite of many of Max Verstappen’s previous team-mates: Sergio Perez struggled more on Saturdays compared to the four-time world champion, while the gap in race pace was (slightly) smaller than over a single flying lap.

“I need to focus on the long runs, especially for now,” the Red Bull racer explained in Baku. “In Monza, I had a bit of damage, but as a team we also work hard to understand what's the main issue causing the long run pace. The things that we experience are things that even the team can't really explain. That's the main thing.

Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing Team, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images

“In terms of the short runs, I'm very happy with it. I think the team is very happy as well. It's clear that I'm showing race by race that I'm getting close to Max, even though there's package difference,” Tsunoda points out, referring to the fact that he had to drive with an older floor specification in most races. “I was consistently two tenths behind Max in qualifying, apart from Q3. I think that's definitely showing well and definitely people in the team are noticing this.”

Three tenths per lap in damage at Monza

Sundays, however, often tell a very different story, as was the case in Monza – where he finished eighty seconds behind race winner Verstappen, damage included.

“What I heard is that the damage was less than three tenths per lap, but as I said, we were struggling anyway. Myself, I was struggling with the things that even the team couldn't explain, and we tried to sort out those issues,” Tsunoda added.

The issues forced Tsunoda to experiment with set-up more than he would have liked.