Yuki Tsunoda thinks he may have found the answer to the weakness that’s limited him to contributing just nine points in 14 Formula 1 races with Red Bull in 2025.
Tsunoda has been demolished by team-mate Max Verstappen, but unlike his predecessors, who were also routinely a big step behind Verstappen, Tsunoda’s biggest deficit is his long-run pace rather than over a single lap.
Heading into F1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Tsunoda made it clear that his focus since the Italian GP has been on improving his race pace problems that “the team can’t really explain”.
And the early evidence from Friday in Baku is promising according to Tsunoda, who was 14th fastest in FP2.
“It's good. I mean, short run there's some, obviously, room to put it all together,” he said.
“But [that]’s something that I tried, and it's good, there was something we were experiencing in FP2 and everything, but mainly what we were focussed [on] was the long run and that seems much better.
“I mean, never seen that kind of thing so far this year, in the long run. So far it's working. It makes sense, so far, with the long run.”
Tsunoda’s long-run average on the mediums was in the high 1m46s, a few tenths off Verstappen’s soft tyre long run but in the mix with Oscar Piastri’s McLaren and faster than the Mercedes duo. So the early data does tentatively back up Tsunoda's positivity.
And if Red Bull has really found something with its set-up experiments that helped it to victory at Monza - Verstappen declared “we’ve found a nice stable balance on Friday in Baku” - then that should only be good news for Tsunoda too.
And it couldn’t have come at a more important time…
‘Crucial races’
Tsunoda is well aware he faces a “crucial” set of races ahead, with Red Bull indicating it will make a call on its 2026 driver line-ups before next month’s Mexican GP, in just four races’ time.
Isack Hadjar remains the favourite to be Verstappen’s team-mate next year, so the pressure is mounting for Tsunoda to deliver a breakthrough.
Especially given Tsunoda’s other option would be a potential return to Racing Bulls - which in itself is far from guaranteed given incumbent Liam Lawson’s decent points-scoring form and Arvid Lindblad’s expected promotion.
Otherwise, Tsunoda would likely be heading for the F1 exit door with ever-tightening options elsewhere.
For now, Tsunoda just has to make sure this isn’t another false dawn.
Don’t forget, there have been signs of a breakthrough before that haven’t been built upon. And Baku is unique in the history of the second Red Bull seat as Sergio Perez took two of his five Red Bull victories here - including a 2023 weekend in which he was genuinely faster than Verstappen.
Perez outqualified Verstappen in 2024 too, and should have finished ahead of him (and on the podium) without a late crash with Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari in the race.
So there’s some evidence that Baku isn’t the best barometer for where the second Red Bull driver stands - but Tsunoda sustaining this strong long-run pace on Sunday is essential.
