Yuki Tsunoda’s rapid F1 career turnaround: Inside his first week as a Red Bull driver

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SUZUKA, Japan — For a country that holds a dear place in Formula One’s history, it may come as a surprise that the success of Japan’s drivers has been somewhat limited.

A Japanese driver has not finished any higher than third in a grand prix, and that has happened just three times, most recently Kamui Kobayashi in 2012.

But following his sudden promotion to the senior Red Bull team last week, Yuki Tsunoda knows he has his long-awaited chance to write a new chapter in Japan’s F1 history. Resuming his story with a home grand prix at Suzuka has only made it more significant.

The Japanese Grand Prix was always going to draw a natural spotlight to Tsunoda, even racing for Red Bull’s sister team, Racing Bulls. A show run with some F1 cars through the streets of Tokyo on the Wednesday before the race was long planned by Red Bull, helping honor a partnership with Honda that comes to an end this year.

The fact the Tokyo event ended up being Tsunoda’s first public appearance in the navy blue overalls of the senior team he had so longed to one day represent added to the excitement.

“It can’t be crazier than this,” Tsunoda said in a news conference on Thursday. “First race in the Red Bull Racing, but also on top of it in (my) home grand prix. It’s the best situation ever in terms of anything. I’m just excited.”

Yuki Tsunoda waves to the crowd during a Red Bull show run on April 2 in Tokyo, Japan. (Mark Thompson/Getty Images for Oracle Red Bull Racing)

Tsunoda’s career turnaround has been rapid. In December, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner cast doubt on what the driver’s long-term future will look like if it did not offer him a seat with the senior team, having passed over him in favor of Liam Lawson to replace Sergio Pérez.

Less than four months later, after seeing Lawson struggle through the first two race weekends and agreeing with the rest of Red Bull’s leadership that a change was required, Horner was calling Tsunoda to tell him the seat might be coming his way.

After returning home to Italy following the Chinese Grand Prix, Tsunoda was always scheduled to head to Red Bull’s factory in Milton Keynes to use its simulator to help prepare his Racing Bulls car for the triple-header across Japan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The plan changed as things fell into place for him to take over Lawson’s seat, meaning he could go through intense preparations behind the virtual version of the Red Bull car.

Tsunoda said on Thursday that while the simulator would never perfectly correlate to the real-world car, the RB21 did not feel “crazy tricky”. The time in the simulator also allowed Tsunoda to try different setups and work out what driving style adjustments might be required for the notoriously tricky Red Bull car, which only Max Verstappen has tamed in recent years.

While at the factory, Tsunoda received confirmation in person from Horner that he would be driving for the flagship team at Suzuka. But he didn’t share the news widely. “I didn’t really say anything, not even to my parents,” Tsunoda said, revealing he only told them one day before Red Bull made the announcement on March 27.

It made for an intense week for Tsunoda, who had to deal with not only adjusting to a change in team and change in car, but also all the related marketing requirements, photoshoots and media demands, all of which were going to increase anyway heading into his home race. Now he had the added scrutiny of being the benefactor of one of F1’s most ruthless driver decisions.

“It was brutal enough last year, at the end of the season, when they chose Liam over myself,” Tsunoda said. “So, yeah, we understand. I’m sure Liam understands well how the situation can very quickly change within our structure.”

Yuki Tsunoda attended Red Bull’s factory in Milton Keynes, England, last week. (Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

The enormity of the challenge facing Tsunoda is clear as he follows Lawson, Pérez, Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly, all of whom faced struggles, making the seat the toughest in F1. The target given to Tsunoda was the same as the one set for Lawson: don’t expect to beat Verstappen, but try to get as close as you can. Red Bull also anticipates Tsunoda’s experience from four seasons on the grid will help offer better feedback for the development of the car than Lawson, who had just 11 race starts to his name before this year, could provide.

Once the news was made public, Tsunoda was grateful to receive a text from his former AlphaTauri (now Racing Bulls) teammate, Gasly, who asked if he wanted a chat on the phone. Gasly made the same step as Tsunoda in 2019, being named as Daniel Ricciardo’s replacement, only to be demoted after just 12 races and sent back to the sister team.

“He wanted a call with me about the experience he had in Red Bull, the things that he should have done in Red Bull,” Tsunoda said. In a separate news conference, Gasly explained on Thursday that he had talked to Tsunoda about “what didn’t quite work out and things that could have been different,” but talked up his raw speed and growing experience. “Does it mean he’s (definitely) going to be successful in Red Bull Racing? No. Can he be successful in Red Bull Racing? Yes. But it’s slightly more complicated.”

But there were a couple of key figures that Tsunoda, who made the trip to Japan at the end of last week to start his various marketing commitments before the race, had not yet spoken to properly. One of them was Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko, a key orchestrator in Tsunoda’s career overseeing the Red Bull young driver academy. Marko was also part of the group of decision-makers who met and agreed on the change last week.

“Surprisingly, he didn’t call me yet,” Tsunoda said. He said it was “very unusual” not to have heard from Marko, who had “always been calling me” at each stage of his career, but doubted there was a deeper reason behind it. “Even last two races, we’ve had still a good relationship,” Tsunoda said. “We didn’t have any (bad) moments between us, honestly.”

Fans show their appreciation of Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda at the Suzuka Circuit on April 3. (Clive Rose/Getty Images)

The other important person Tsunoda had not properly spoken to before getting to Suzuka was his new teammate, Verstappen — the one person who knows how to get the best out of the tricky Red Bull car. The pair spoke briefly when they appeared together at Red Bull’s Tokyo show run on Wednesday, but Tsunoda recognized he had to do a lot of the learning in the Red Bull car himself.

“Even if I tapped his shoulder and asked about the car, I don’t think he’s going to say the truth,” Tsunoda said, adding that he’d been watching videos of Verstappen from the first two races to try to understand how he is driving and getting the most out of the Red Bull.

Verstappen himself stayed coy when he spoke to reporters at Suzuka on Thursday. Marko had revealed in multiple interviews since the decision to make the swap that Verstappen had not agreed with the call, but Verstappen would not be so direct, simply saying his reaction had been “shared with the team” over both the swap and the current limitations of the car. “Sometimes it’s not necessary to always share everything in public,” Verstappen added.

But Verstappen did indicate his position by admitting that his liking of an Instagram post by ex-F1 driver Giedo van der Garde, who wrote that Red Bull’s decision was “closer to bullying or a panic move,” was not a mistake or an accident. “I liked the text,” Verstappen said. “I guess that speaks for itself, right?”

The whirlwind week since Tsunoda was officially announced will calm down when he finally gets into the Red Bull car for the first time in practice on Friday. He may dream of a home podium finish, but a more realistic internal target he has set is to qualify and finish inside the top 10, something Lawson failed to achieve.

Regardless of the result, Tsunoda can count on the electric support of Suzuka’s passionate, creative fanbase. Even on Thursday, before any track action had commenced, plenty of fans were out in support of Tsunoda at the track, carrying life-size cutouts of him — already in a Red Bull race suit — down the pit lane or wearing headwear carrying pictures of his face. Interest in the home favorite has surged and sustained, from Tokyo all the way to Suzuka. “Everything comes together,” Tsunoda said. “The fans seem very excited. I’m very happy to see that.”

He’s not feeling the pressure, either. “I’m really relaxing somehow,” Tsunoda said. “It feels actually similar to when I was in (Racing Bulls). Once I entered the hospitality, I was feeling literally the same. I was only thinking about breakfast.”

(Top photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images for Oracle Red Bull Racing)

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