Yuki Tsunoda on Red Bull’s 2026 call: “I just keep performing” after Mexico GP qualifying

Yuki Tsunoda says he’ll keep performing while Red Bull weigh up his 2026 seat

Yuki Tsunoda is focusing firmly on delivering on track while Red Bull continues to assess his seat going into 2026. This comes as the Japanese driver narrowly missed out on Q3 during qualifying for the Mexico Grand Prix.

Asked where he stood on the comments from team principal Laurent Mekies and adviser Helmut Marko, who said they will be taking their time making a decision about the future of his seat, he replied: “I don't know if it's happier or not, to be honest, but I just keep performing and I mean, Sainz is going to drop P5, I don't know how much position he's going to drop. But yeah, I think I'm starting with P10, so I will take it.”

The Red Bull driver was competitive in his driving at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez on Saturday. He fell short of the top 10, but will be promoted to 10th on the grid thanks to Carlos Sainz's five-place grid penalty from the United States Grand Prix.

“Yeah, this time I was quite close to Max [Verstappen] consistently throughout the qualifying. I was two tenths off from Max, which in a normal situation I would have been in Q3, but probably as a team we struggled a little bit at pace until Q2 at least so far. So yeah, that's it.”

Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

The 25-year-old, similar to his team-mate who will start fifth in Sunday's race, struggled with low mechanical grip.

“No, I mean, I think me and Max struggled with the same thing. I think he was struggling with the grip. Also same as me as well, especially just mechanical grip, especially just struggling. And with this kind of situation, it's very sensitive to warm-up as well. But anyway, at least it was not a bad lap I had in Q2, but just this time, I think I…we struggled a bit.”

Talking to Sky Germany, Marko was happy with his driver's performance.

"I hope the trend continues, and with a top 10, he then has a good chance of scoring points," he said.