Red Bull left ‘bamboozled’ after new Yuki Tsunoda data discovery

With Yuki Tsunoda the latest Max Verstappen team-mate to struggle for performance, team and driver have been left “bamboozled.”

That is the claim made by F1 driver turned analyst Jolyon Palmer, who said that no clear explanation can be found in Tsunoda‘s data to explain his lack of performance.

Yuki Tsunoda: Can he salvage his Red Bull career?

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Tsunoda got his long-awaited opportunity with the senior Red Bull team in time for his home race – the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix – with Liam Lawson sent back to Racing Bulls after two torrid race weekends as the replacement for Sergio Perez at Red Bull.

But, Tsunoda has not done much better, scoring only seven points in nine grands prix, and finds himself behind Lawson in the Drivers’ Championship in 17th.

Tsunoda’s Red Bull career arguably hit a new low in Austria when he crossed the line last – the only driver to be lapped twice – a race in which he incurred a 10-second time penalty for sending Franco Colapinto into a spin.

Tsunoda’s predicament is not getting any easier, and Palmer, in his analysis for the Formula 1 website, said the data offers Tsunoda and Red Bull few clues on how to rescue the situation.

“Looking at Yuki’s qualifying laps recently, there aren’t any obvious errors in there,” Palmer writes. “He’s not hanging on to the car, or losing chunks of time in any particular corner.

“If anything, as a driver it’s nicer to come back from a disappointing session and see that a mistake here or there cost you, because it’s something tangible. You can put your finger on it, see what you did wrong and work out how much it cost. You can also figure out changes to your driving style to correct it.

“In Yuki’s case at the moment, there aren’t any obvious errors to point at, which is why both he and the team are left bamboozled at his lack of pace.”

Tsunoda, like Lawson, Perez, Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly before him, has been unable to crack the code on how to consistently perform at a level comparable to Verstappen’s in Red Bull machinery.

Palmer has seen enough to decide that no driver will succeed in that task.

“When asked if he was confident about his chances at Red Bull, Yuki was bullish at the start of the season, but now nine races into his tenure in the sport’s toughest seat, I think the understanding of the fates of many before him has hit,” Palmer suggested.

“He hoped that because his driving style was closer to that of Max he would be better off, but it turns out that nobody can drive a car similar to how Max can operate at his peak.”

F1 2025 head-to-head standings

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Despite a gap of just a quarter of a second to Verstappen in Austria qualifying, Tsunoda did not make it out of Q1, his third exit at the opening stage of qualifying over the last five rounds.

With the situation only worsening on race day, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner had few words of comfort, as he referenced the “big delta” between his drivers.

“Yuki had a horrible race,” Horner told the media, including PlanetF1.com after the Austrian Grand Prix.

“Again, it started to go wrong for him in Q1 yesterday. His first run in Q1 was fine. Second run, he made a mistake at Turn 1 and then qualified badly, and then was running in traffic, unable to pass, then picks up a penalty, and it just compounds things.

“So of course, we’ll look to see how we can support him, but there’s a big delta between the two cars.”

On the second Red Bull seat which continues to prove so problematic, Horner added: “Of course, internally, we ask all of those questions that, no doubt, you ask in terms of, why.

“Obviously, the car has evolved over years in a specific direction, but, we’ll see if we can help Yuki and rebuild his confidence in Silverstone.”

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