Formula 1 is widely regarded as the pinnacle of motor racing. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry in which household names such as Mercedes, Mclaren and Ferrari compete on circuits around the world at hundreds of kilometres an hour, in vehicles that are constantly pushing the limits of automotive engineering. It’s the dream of most racing drivers to even get close to this sport, but with only 20 seats available, two cars per team, it’s an elusive dream that often requires more than just skill.
But even if a driver does make it to this level, not all teams are created equal. There are cost caps in place preventing overspending, but even so, some teams remain far better equipped than others, with infrastructure and engineers in a class of their own. This discrepancy means that in Formula 1, there are cars, and there are cars that can win races. After years of waiting for his chance, Japan’s own Yuki Tsunoda has just been given his long-awaited shot in the latter, as he takes the reins at Red Bull Racing alongside 2024 World Driver’s Champion, Max Verstappen, ahead of his home race at Japan’s Suzuka Circuit on April 6th.
Who is Yuki Tsunoda?
Born in Kanagawa on May 11, 2000, Tsunoda was first introduced to the world of racing by his father, who took him to go-karting at a nearby circuit at just four years old. A few years later in 2007 he attended the Japanese Grand Prix, then held at Fuji Speedway. Ever since then, Tsunoda has gone from strength to strength in motorsport.
After coming up in karting, Tsunoda won the Japanese Formula 4 championship, an open-wheel category designed for junior drivers, in 2018. The following year he moved to Europe and competed in Formula 3, before driving his way to an impressive third place in the 2020 Formula 2 championship. An effort that drew the attention of Red Bull, where he landed a seat at their second Formula 1 team, then known as Scuderia Alpha Tauri, and made his debut in 2021 at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Throughout his time with the team, today known as the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls, Tsunoda showed consistency on track and campaigned on multiple occasions for the opportunity to step up and take the wheel of a Red Bull Racing car. Each time he was overlooked. Until now.
The Controversy
To the uninitiated, a Formula 1 driver moving to another team might not sound newsworthy, and in a lot of cases, it may only be mentioned in passing. But this second seat at Red Bull is perhaps the most controversial in recent history, mainly for the fact that historically, drivers haven’t lasted long in it.
Since arriving at Red Bull Racing in 2016, Max Verstappen has won four world championship titles. In that same time, he’s also gone through five teammates, including Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo, Mexico’s Sergio Perez, and now New Zealand’s Liam Lawson, who is today replaced by Yuki Tsunoda ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix. But why does this keep happening?
As described by Alex Albon, another of Verstappen’s former teammates at Red Bull, the way the car is configured by the team, a configuration that favors the current champion’s driving style, makes the car a challenge to drive. “I like a car that has a good front end, so quite sharp, quite direct,” Albon explains. “Max does too, but his level of sharp and direct is… it’s a whole different level. It’s eye-wateringly sharp.”
It’s this difficulty in taming the Red Bull car that has prevented other drivers from realizing the same success that Verstappen does. A reality that eventually snowballs and sees them fall further and further behind each race as the car gets dialed in more and more. In spite of this repeated trend, because it’s a car capable of winning races, drivers like Tsunoda will still jump at the chance to prove themselves in it.
What This Means for Yuki
Nobody’s future is guaranteed in Formula 1, especially at Red Bull Racing. Aside from building a competitive car, the team also has a history of being ruthless with drivers that underperform in it. Lawson, who Tsunoda is replacing, was appointed to the team at the beginning of the 2025, and after just two lackluster performances, one in Australia and one in China, he’s already out. But this doesn’t mean Tsunoda can’t realize success.
The specifics aren’t known, but it’s said that Tsunoda performed well when given a chance to drive a Red Bull Racing car during last year’s end-of-season one-day test in Abu Dhabi. Despite this, Lawson was chosen for the seat, with Red Bull team principal Christian Horner stating that the decision between the two drivers was “very, very tight.” Today, things look very, very different.
So with the Japanese Formula 1 right around the corner and Tsunoda now in the seat he’s been chasing for years, the stage couldn’t be better set for the young racer from Kanagawa. From a little boy behind the wheel of a go-kart, to the cockpit of one of Formula 1’s fastest cars in front of his home country, his career is the stuff of Hollywood, regardless of how it plays out from here.
