Navigating Red Bull Racing: The 'Commitment-Phobe' of F1

Is Yuki Tsunoda's career in his own hands?

Mar 26, 2025

It seems that Yuki Tunoda’s move to Red Bull Racing is a done deal after several credible sources within the paddock reported the news as fact. The reports suggest that a team meeting was held in Dubai where the decision was made, and confirmation appears imminent.

Although this news is not surprising based on Red Bull Racing’s commitment-phobe approach to their four racing seats, is this really the best outcome for Yuki Tsunoda? Possibly.

At a surface level, I wasn’t keen on Yuki’s move to Red Bull Racing. Not only does it seem particularly cruel to only give Liam Lawson two races to adjust and deliver results, but as Helmut Marko said himself, Yuki is ‘in the form of his life’ over at the Racing Bulls team. If it isn’t broken, why fix it?

Tsunoda and Hadjar appear to be getting on well and are delivering great results for the team. Is it fair to shake things up for a team that is finally starting to be solidly in the midfield after years of hanging on to the midfield by a thread?

However, there is a slight complication in the fact that Racing Bulls is meant to be a junior team. With the 2025 season being Yuki’s fifth season with the team and with Honda departing from Red Bull, it seems as though his contract was beginning to run on fumes anyway. This is especially true when you look at Red Bull’s junior driver programme, where exceptionally talented drivers such as Arvid Lindblad and Pepe Marti are making their way up the ranks.

Realistically, Yuki’s options look like this:

1. Stay at Racing Bulls this year, deliver results consistently, and hope to find an alternative racing seat for next year (possible links to Aston Martin, Audi and Cadillac, but all unlikely at this point). If an alternative seat isn’t available, then he is out of F1.

2. Move to Red Bull Racing, most likely have the same outcome as Liam and the other ‘second drivers,’ as seemingly no one but Max can drive that car. Then, either be axed early or replaced at the end of the year anyway, still resulting in his departure from F1.

3. Move to Red Bull Racing, take a leap of faith and somehow figure out how to perform in the car, prove everyone wrong and extend his F1 career.

If I were in Yuki’s position, I would probably take the leap of faith and step up to the senior team, too. What other option is there really?

However, my main takeaway from this whole ‘second driver’ saga at Red Bull is that Red Bull needs to realise that they are the problem.

Christian Horner’s decisions in his personal life created a lot of inner turmoil in the team. They have already lost Adrian Newey. They failed to retain the Constructor’s Championship. Not to mention, Max Verstappen seems more dissatisfied than ever. There are even rumours that Max may be moving to Mercedes for the 2026 season, which would have seemed unimaginable only a couple of years ago.

When your main driver is unhappy, your car is losing performance, your best members of staff are leaving, and tensions are rising, at what point do you have some self-reflection?

I am by no means insinuating that running a team in Formula 1 is easy and that teams should be able to get it right all the time, but sweeping issues under the rug instead of addressing them will never work out in the long term for any problem in life.

I think it is critical to their survival that Red Bull finally starts having the tough discussions instead of using their drivers as scapegoats. Daniel Riccardo, Sergio Perez, Nyck De Vries and Liam Lawson are all incredibly talented drivers. It isn’t as though their talent just disappeared overnight.

Maybe it’s time for Toto to deliver those printouts he has…