Yuki Tsunoda was axed by Red Bull after a hugely disappointing maiden season with the team during the 2025 Formula 1 season.
The Japanese racing driver was dropped into the second RB21 race seat alongside Max Verstappen from the 2025 Japanese GP onwards.
Tsunoda was expected to be a competent replacement for Liam Lawson, whom the Milton Keynes-based team axed just two races into his debut season with the squad.
But Tsunoda struggled to be on par with Verstappen, finishing 17th in the driver’s standings compared to the Dutchman’s second.
Reflecting on his time with the Red Bull senior team, Tsunoda conceded that he still cannot fully explain as to why he struggled to such an extent strapped into the RB21 – a car that had won eight races in the hands of Verstappen.
“Normally I’m able to understand the car, what I’m driving, what kind of characteristic,” he said on the Beyond the Grid podcast.
“But it feels like even after Abu Dhabi, I didn’t know what kind of car I was driving.
“I still don’t understand what was the issue and what things made me struggle to learn about this car and get used to the car.
“I thought confidence was there, but some [races] I just somehow lost the confidence. I still don’t understand the car, to be honest.”
Yuki Tsunoda opens up on ‘failed’ Red Bull F1 experiment
Tsunoda had a pretty obvious benchmark in Verstappen around him.
He explained that he would normally not resort to tweaking his driving style. But his struggles with the car even prompted him to try Verstappen’s set-ups and tip sheets.
That said, it never really paid off for Tsunoda. “One thing about myself: I have big enough ego to not change my driving style,” Tsunoda explained.
“I know what I’m doing in terms of driving and I believe in myself. So, I never try to change my driving style to another driver’s, even though the driver is competitive and fast.
“Obviously for Max, it’s a different case. He’s a world champion, he proves a lot of things and I still learn a lot of things from his driving.
“My core driving is the same. And at some time, probably the first year out of any years since I started, I thought about changing driving style and trying to do something similar to Max.
“But in my perspective, if I just look at data, I didn’t really see a huge difference in terms of driving.”
In fact, Tsunoda explained how trying to replicate Verstappen turned out to make his life trickier in the cockpit of the RB21.
“What I did most – and what I think now was the biggest mistake last year – was to try to replicate the set-up,” he admitted.
“Even knowing that sometimes, if I feel the car very oversteer, Max’s [set-up] in theory makes the car worse, more sensitive in the direction change, or makes the car slide more.
“I tend to choose the set-up, even though I’m already struggling with oversteer.
“It can happen sometimes the opposite way as well: even though I’m struggling with understeer, his car is more understeer. I try to replicate that.”
After spending half the season on the sidelines, Tsunoda has been called into action for Racing Bulls, as Liam Lawson has had to step up to cover for an injured Isack Hadjar.
Three races into his cameo, the Japanese racing driver has already seen himself back in the points with a 10th-placed finish at Monza.
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