The move was all the messier for Tsunoda being promoted into the senior team. While you\u2019d struggle to find anyone in the paddock who didn\u2019t think him worthy after four seasons of toil at the junior team, he\u2019d also been consistently disregarded by Red Bull Racing management for the drive to the point that RBR principal Christian Horner suggested during the off-season that he\u2019d be let go at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n
It was a remarkable about-face that only heightened the long-formed impression that the Red Bull driver program was running out of ideas.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
The audacious switch needs to pay off if anyone\u2019s to come out of it without too much on egg on their face.<\/p>\n
So far, however, the results have been inconclusive.<\/p>\n
While both drivers have needed time to acclimatise to their new surroundings, neither has yet looked comfortable, and certainly neither looks like they\u2019re getting anywhere close to their potential.<\/p>\n
MISSION STATEMENT NOT YET MET<\/b><\/p>\n
Red Bull Racing had a clear mission statement for its second driver this season: be better than Sergio P\u00e9rez.<\/p>\n
It was not explicit, but it was clearly implied. The team had re-signed P\u00e9rez early last year on what it announced as a two-year contract spanning 2025 and 2026, but his form subsequently spiralled so badly that the team tore up the new deal before it had even begun, deciding it was better to pay him not to drive one of its cars.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t pay him off to replace him with a driver who would deliver worse results.<\/p>\n
Alarmingly, neither Lawson nor Tsunoda has convincingly met that threshold.<\/p>\n
The stats below compare the three drivers to have sat in the second Red Bull Racing car over the last 12 months.<\/p>\n
They account for the last 18 races of 2024, when P\u00e9rez began to fade. This isn\u2019t to diminish what had been a genuinely strong start to the season; rather it\u2019s to analyse the form that convinced Red Bull Racing to cut him loose.<\/p>\n
Lawson\u2019s two starts and Tsunoda\u2019s six starts to date are considered in contrast.<\/p>\n
PIT TALK PODCAST: Pole and victory for Lando Norris has cut his title deficit to Oscar Piastri to just three points, and his most comprehensive performance in months could be the turning point he needs in the championship fight. <\/b><\/p>\n
The qualifying metrics are particularly telling. P\u00e9rez\u2019s biggest struggle was over one lap, when the car was at its most unpredictable and difficult to tame.<\/p>\n
While Lawson\u2019s struggles were worse, Tsunoda so far has been an almost identical match.<\/p>\n
Qualifying differential<\/b><\/p>\n
Sergio P\u00e9rez<\/b>: 7.8 places behind (11.4 average)<\/p>\n
Liam Lawson<\/b>: 15.5 places behind (15.5 average)<\/p>\n
Yuki Tsunoda<\/b>: 8.0 places behind (10.8 average)<\/p>\n
The qualifying margins are also extremely similar.<\/p>\n
Time differential*<\/b><\/p>\n
Sergio P\u00e9rez<\/b>: 0.694 seconds slower<\/p>\n
Liam Lawson<\/b>: 1.006 seconds slower<\/p>\n
Yuki Tsunoda<\/b>: 0.691 seconds slower<\/p>\n
*all laps normalised to 90 seconds to make different circuits comparable.<\/p>\n
You could argue that Tsunoda\u2019s struggles are down to what\u2019s had to be a rapid acclimatisation to his difficult car. Certainly that\u2019s part of the story.<\/p>\n
But if it were the entirety of it, you\u2019d expect to see some improvement in the race-day performances, when the car is less sensitive and more compliant.<\/p>\n
Instead we see the opposite.<\/p>\n
Race differential<\/b><\/p>\n
Sergio P\u00e9rez<\/b>: 6.6 places behind (10.3 average)<\/p>\n
Liam Lawson<\/b>: 8.0 places behind (12.0 average)<\/p>\n
Yuki Tsunoda<\/b>: 8.4 places behind (10.0 average)*<\/p>\n
*Tsunoda had been on average 7.3 places behind Verstappen before the Monaco Grand Prix, where difficulty overtaking and a failed strategy dropped him from 12th to 17th.<\/p>\n
Tsunoda\u2019s points tally is commensurately meagre.<\/p>\n
Points scored<\/b><\/p>\n
Sergio P\u00e9rez<\/b>: 49-301 points (16.28 per cent of Verstappen\u2019s score)<\/p>\n
Liam Lawson<\/b>: 0-36 points (0 per cent)<\/p>\n
Yuki Tsunoda<\/b>: 7-100 points (7.00 per cent)<\/p>\n
‘Are you upset with me?’ | 01:31<\/p>\n
IS TSUNODA IN THE P\u00c9REZ ZONE?<\/b><\/p>\n
All Tsunoda\u2019s vital statistics would appear to put him in the same performance zone as P\u00e9rez in the months before the axe swung.<\/p>\n
But the situation isn\u2019t quite so dire yet, and there are reasons for that.<\/p>\n
The first is obvious: it hasn\u2019t been long enough. P\u00e9rez was given years before his underperformance became sackable. Tsunoda is only six grands prix into his tenure and needs time to adjust to what is clearly a difficult car.<\/p>\n
Lawson\u2019s treatment might suggest otherwise, but as the data above shows, the Kiwi\u2019s struggles were much worse, even if his two-race axing was undeniably harsh.<\/p>\n
And if Tsunoda is already at P\u00e9rez\u2019s level now, there\u2019s reason to keep the faith that the flashes of speed he\u2019s shown from round to round, albeit usually in practice, could yet become his regular level once he settles in the team.<\/p>\n
The second element is directly related: that Red Bull Racing has come to accept, at least on some level, that its car is at the core of its problems.<\/p>\n
When Tsunoda stepped up in Japan, he became Verstappen\u2019s third teammate in four months. The fact each one of them has performed so poorly relative to the Dutchman is now more important than their identities.<\/p>\n
P\u00e9rez said it repeatedly in his final months with the team, when the RB20 became so difficult to drive that even Verstappen himself was struggling to qualify and race with it. The Mexican was the canary in the coalmine for some deep-rooted, baked-in handling traits in this generation of Red Bull Racing car.<\/p>\n
Verstappen\u2019s prodigious talent has been able to paper over those considerable cracks for years, but now even the four-time champion can\u2019t regularly save the team all its blushes.<\/p>\n
Early in the year he was particularly vociferous about the team\u2019s problems, and his backing of Lawson to succeed was interpreted as him urging the team not to scapegoat another driver over a technical problem.<\/p>\n
Sainz & Albon upset with ‘manipulation’ | 04:38<\/p>\n
That of course isn\u2019t to say that Red Bull Racing\u2019s patience in infinite. While Monaco wasn\u2019t a strong weekend for the team, Tsunoda\u2019s performance in Imola last weekend was particularly hard to take at a circuit that played to the RB21\u2019s strengths.<\/p>\n
Verstappen contended for pole position and went on to win the race with what he proved was the fastest car on the day.<\/p>\n
Tsunoda crashed out of Q1 without having set a time and was forced to start from pit lane. Safety car timing helped him up to 10th place for a point.<\/p>\n
The Japanese star apologised profusely afterwards, acknowledging that there was no excuse for him to be pushing so hard on the first lap of qualifying an after having made some blind set-up changes to the car.<\/p>\n
It contributed to a feeling that, after reasonably progress in his first few races with the team, Tsunoda\u2019s trajectory has stalled.<\/p>\n
And having been outqualified by Verstappen by 0.8 seconds, 0.7 seconds and 0.7 second at the previous three weekends, it was tempting to see this as a perpetuation of the same trend that nixed all his predecessors.<\/p>\n