Red Bull Racing senior advisor Helmut Marko gave Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda until the Mexican Grand Prix to prove his merits for a 2026 seat at the Austrian race team.
Tsunoda, a long-time Red Bull junior who worked his way up the F1 feeder system with the team’s driver development program, finally got his chance with the senior squad after Liam Lawson struggled during the first two race weekends of the season.
After Sergio Perez underwhelmed alongside Max Verstappen for long stretches of time during the 2023 and 2024 seasons, Red Bull finally decided to move on from the experienced Mexican.
The decision-makers initially opted for Lawson, citing his mentality as a key reason.
With only one year left on his deal with Racing Bulls, and the Red Bull higher-ups not favoring him for a senior team race seat, Tsunoda looked to be in a driver’s purgatory, seemingly on the shop window for another team.
Then, Lawson was way off the pace of teammate Max Verstappen, and Tsunoda was given his chance.
His time with Red Bull has been a roller coaster ride, though he has been promising at times and, overall, has performed better than Lawson did.
Tsunoda’s overall competitiveness with Verstappen has earned him additional time to prove he is the man to partner the Dutchman.
“He has to get closer to Max and deliver that level of performance consistently,” Marko said.
“That’s why we’ve postponed the option dates further back, and now we’ll look at the upcoming races, and then a decision will be made.”
Mexico is the cut-off for Tsunoda to cement his spot on the team.
Helping Tsunoda’s case is new team boss Laurent Mekies, who is taking over from Christian Horner.
Ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Red Bull made the call to shake up the team’s leadership, and with that decision, a Tsunoda ally has emerged within the team’s hierarchy.
Mekies was the team principal at Racing Bulls previously, working with Tsunoda for an entire season and speaking glowingly of the driver.
The Frenchman vouched for Tsundoda to get the Red Bull seat at the start of the season, feeling as if the young driver had done enough.
According to reporting from Motorsport.com, Mekies pushed for the driver to receive the same-spec car as the reigning champion at the Belgian Grand Prix.
“Sources suggest it was Mekies who pushed for the driver to receive the same-spec car as the reigning champion, signing off on the new floor at Spa-Francorchamps – a part that, under the previous regime, might have remained as Verstappen’s spare,” Alex Harrington of Motorsport wrote.
“The new team principal is also understood to have urged Marko to hold fire on a call for 2026, with the parity of equipment giving the Japanese driver as much of a fair shot as possible, seemingly buying him time to make his case.”
Marko and Horner were known for their quick-triggered decisions, though with Mekies, the team is taking a pragmatic approach.
While the team will be patient, Marko made it clear that the team will be weighing potential replacements.
“We’re looking at that as well, and once we decide, we’ll make the complete driver line-up decision,” he said.
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