Yuki Tsunoda is LUCKY Af
- Tarasekhar Padhy
- Mar 30
- 5 min read
Plenty of Formula 1 fans, especially Yuki Tsunoda supporters, believe that the Japanese driver’s promotion to the second Red Bull seat from the Racing Bulls was long overdue.
That’s partially correct.
While it would have been ideal if the RBR decision-makers gave the nod to Tsunoda over Lawson, it’s much better under the current circumstances.
And there are three data and fact-based reasons for that.
Let’s go through each of them to understand that Yuki joining RBR from Suzuka in 2025 is picture-perfect.
1. If Yuki Fails, It’s the Car
Many drivers from the Red Bull family have struggled to tame the energy drink car. Interestingly, none of these drivers are average by any means. Sergio Perez, Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly, and sometimes Max Verstappen, the second coming of Jesus Christ struggled to drive the Red Bull to its full potential.
This reveals a deeper problem with Red Bull’s machine and how the team is run.
Fundamentally, the Milton Keynes outfit has two options:
Give Max a generationally dominant car and watch him win every race.
Develop the car around both drivers to lift the Red Bull curse.
Choosing between the aforementioned options is more difficult than it seems.
The 2023 F1 season proved what Verstappen can do if the car is a rocketship. Even if the car is on par with McLaren’s pace in the 2025 season, he can take the constructor’s challenge to the Woking outfit singlehandedly.
On the other hand, you can’t predict how quickly and efficiently other teams can develop their cars. The 2024 F1 season, which looked like the 2023 season at the start, proved it when Red Bull tumbled down to P3 on the constructor’s standings come the season finale.
Red Bull has been putting all of their eggs in one basket, the Dutch champion, for the past few years now. As a result, the second driver always struggles. Without the pure performance advantage, they are lagging behind in the championship charge because they have one horse in the race.
In 2025, they're already P3 in the standings.
If Yuki struggles, it will expose the problem. The RBR bosses will think twice before shrugging their shoulders and blaming the pilot.
To put it simply, Tsunoda has less pressure on his shoulders going into the F1 2025 Japanese Grand Prix. Had he joined the team from Australia and performed the way Liam did, his career would’ve been over.
Look, of course, if he gets knocked out in Q1 and takes the chequered flag comfortably outside the points, he will still be judged. However, the extent of hatred and severity of critique will be softer.
2. Tsunoda Has Nothing to Lose
Yuki Tsunoda doesn’t have a contract extension beyond the 2025 F1 season from the Red Bull family. [1]
Moreover, since Honda is becoming exclusive with Aston Martin, their support for the Japanese driver, one of their own, has vanished. They promised that if something pops up at AMRF1, they will recommend Yuki, but that’s highly unlikely. [2]
For all we know, this is the last year we are watching Tsunoda driving a Formula 1 car. He could’ve been kicked out of the Red Bull family regardless.
However, now, there is a chance.
If he performs better than Liam and continues to improve, regardless of the rate, he can earn a spot in RBR considering how much everyone has been struggling with that car lately. All he has to do is make it out of Q1 and score points every race.
I know that it is a tall task, especially the point-scoring part, but that’s just Formula 1 racing. Yes, the car is difficult to drive. At the same time, your teammate, the second coming of Jesus Christ, is fighting for poles and podium finishes. It is imperative that you at least have to score points.
Additionally, on top of meeting the above requirements, if Tsunoda can provide actionable insights to the engineering team to develop the car further, it’s the cherry on top.
Considering Yuki has nothing to lose and has relatively less pressure going into Japan, his home grand prix, it is quite plausible. Furthermore, we are witnessing prime Tsunoda in 2025, which brings the third reason.
3. Yuki is At His Best in 2025
One of the many peculiarities of Yuki Tsunoda is that he is a late bloomer. The guy takes time to learn the ropes of extracting the most out of the machine. For instance, even in his second season in F1, he scored only about half the points that his then-teammate Pierre Gasly did.
He took longer than his counterparts to connect with the car. Even if you compare his performance with Nyck DeVries, you can spot this trend. People forget that Nyck, despite scoring zero points during his ten-race stint in F1, finished ahead of Tsunoda on two occasions.
Additionally, if you notice their finishing order from Monaco to Great Britain, it is evident that DeVries had closed the gap to his teammate who had over two years of experience in F1.
Liam Lawson demonstrated that as well. After replacing Daniel Ricciardo in 2023, he finished behind Yuki only once.
Plus, you add the plethora of crashes in free practice and qualifying sessions that Tsunoda gets into relatively frequently, and you can quickly realize why he was “overlooked” by RBR bosses for so long.
Fortunately, that doesn’t matter now because, in the first two races of this season, the Japanese man cooked.
He’s done everything right so far—from qualifying well to staying out of trouble. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t score a single point in the Australian and Chinese Grand Prix in 2025 due to the stupidity of the Racing Bulls pit wall.
The three points he has on the board come from the sprint race in China.
The point is, dude is in the form of his life. Much better than last year. If there is a version of Yuki Tsunoda that can tame the second Red Bull, it is this one.
Looking Forward: All Eyes on Suzuka
Japan always brings fantastic racing. It is a track where your ability can make a difference. We should not expect Yuki to be close, let alone beat Verstappen.
Of course, I’d welcome that outcome due to the memes it’d lead to.
Realistically, he should, like I mentioned earlier, make it into Q2 and score points at least.
If he pulls duds like Liam he will still stay because RBR is out of options. Or perhaps they’ll put Franco Colapinto, who knows?
Until next time,
Tara
