9 NEW TIMES ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT May 1-7, 2025 MIAMI RACE WEEK 2025 GUIDE Tsunoda has undeniable talent and now, undeniable pressure. Laurent Mekies, Tsunoda’s boss at Visa Cash App RB, agrees, adding that the driver is ready to step up to a top team. “For sure he’s ready. We had these questions many times in the past and we kept repeating that Yuki made an incredible step last year compared to his previous seasons,” Mekies says. “We really felt that if he was going to make another step in 2025, we would be talking about a very serious level—and that’s exactly what he has done.” Mekies elaborates on Tsunoda’s growth: “We often think that drivers only grow from a maturity standpoint—in the calmness and in the analysis— but I think in Yuki’s case, we have seen him making steps in every direction. We have seen him being calmer, being more mature, improving massively his technical feedback. Really quite an incredible step across the last 12 months, and this is converting to more speed. As a result, the natural speed when he gets into the car is higher straight away.” But while the new recruit’s gifts are clear to those who’ve worked closest with him, channeling that talent inside the notoriously tricky Red Bull car is another matter. In the wake of Lawson’s results and in the run-up to his home race in Japan, Tsunoda made light of the supposed challenges the peaky (meaning front-end biased) RB21 presents, saying that “I will just do whatever I was doing previously, and I’ll just go step by step to build the pace. Maybe I don’t have to do that. Maybe the car is straight-away good.” In practice and the early stages of qualifying in Japan, Tsunoda’s prediction seemed to come true as he stuck to around a tenth of a second off his teammate throughout. In Q2, however, it unraveled, as the Japanese driver misjudged tire preparation in his final run and qualified 15th—while his new teammate took a stunning pole position. And as Verstappen marched to his first win of 2025 the following day, Tsunoda was mired in the midfield on a track where qualifying is all- important and finished 12th. Tsunoda knew he must do better. “I think if I can understand our tire prep better, I can put the car in a better place for race day and hopefully score the points and performance I know we are capable of,” he says. “I learned so much across the weekend in Suzuka. I understand the RB21 so much better now and also how the team operates in different ways to what I have been used to. It’s down to me to apply that now and make sure I can perform and get the most from this car.” A week later, he did just that. In Bahrain, Tsunoda took a big step forward, seeming more confident as the weekend progressed, ultimately finishing the race in ninth—giving him his first points with Red Bull Racing. (Sunday in Jeddah, in Tsunoda’s own words, was “a day to forget.”) As Tsunoda and the team move forward, Horner insists that he will be helped in that process by a team that at last acknowledges how Verstappen’s spectacular talent informs how the car behaves in race conditions. “We have to provide a different set-up,” Horner told Sky Sports F1 when asked if Tsunoda’s driving style complemented Verstappen’s. “Max’s ability to extract lap time from the car is unique, and we haven’t seen another driver able to do that in the way Max is able to. Therefore, you need to give a calmer car to whoever is the partner driver, to give a more settled and predictable feel. That is not necessarily the quickest car, but it is definitely a more confidence- inspiring car for whichever driver [is in the second car].” Time will tell, but that suggests that a calmer Tsunoda behind the wheel of a more composed RB21 could be the second seat X-factor Red Bull Racing have been seeking since Ricciardo’s departure almost seven years ago. If that’s the case, then the most volatile seat to hold in F1 might be about to get a bit more stable. M I A M I RACE W E E K RED BULL CONTENT POOL
