Yuki Tsunoda ‘ready’ to fight Max Verstappen in big Red Bull seat declaration

Yuki Tsunoda believes he is deserving of a seat with the Red Bull Racing team.

Yuki Tsunoda says he feels ready to fight for F1’s top positions with Red Bull, and believes he deserves to be under consideration as Max Verstappen’s teammate.

The Japanese driver has been VCARB’s star performer in F1 2024 but has not been seriously linked with a possible promotion to a Red Bull seat as speculation swirls about a possible driver swap at the Milton Keynes-based squad.

Yuki Tsunoda: I’ve been feeling ready for the last three years

All eyes are on what Red Bull chooses to do with Sergio Perez’s cockpit for the remainder of 2024, as the Mexican driver has struggled for pace and consistency in the second quarter of the championship.

With McLaren, Mercedes, and Ferrari all fighting Red Bull with strong driver pairings, Max Verstappen has been left exposed to battling by himself as Perez has been unable to get himself properly in the mix – he’s scored just 15 points in the last six race weekends and has been outscored by all of Red Bull’s rival drivers.

With a contract clause understood to be in place that would allow Red Bull to pull the trigger on a driver swap if Perez is more than 100 points behind Verstappen after the Belgian Grand Prix, the leading contender initially appeared to be Daniel Ricciardo.

The Australian previously raced with Red Bull between 2014 and ’18 and wasn’t cowed by Verstappen during their two-and-a-half seasons together – a dream scenario for Red Bull if Ricciardo can race at that level again.

Ricciardo, despite recent improvements, has been largely upstaged by Tsunoda throughout 2024, and PlanetF1.com understands the Japanese driver is not being seriously considered for a promotion – meaning it’s the team’s current reserve driver Liam Lawson who may be given the nod for the second half of the season if Red Bull does decide on a change.

Speaking to the media ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Tsunoda said he feels ready to mix it with F1’s main players at the head of the field, including Verstappen.

“If I’m not ready, I [wouldn’t have been] able to fully announce the next season, at least for VCARB,” he said when asked if he feels ready for a Red Bull seat.

“I’ve been feeling ready for the last three years to fight against the top teams, higher positions, even with Max or whatever.

“But, in the end, they’re the ones who are going to decide and it’s not the things I can control. So I’m just focusing on what I have to do at the next two races. So I have to focus on a lot of things with our teams and yes, let’s see how it goes. Just the same as the previous races just focusing on what I have to do for performance.”

Asked whether he feels he deserves the seat at Red Bull alongside Verstappen, Tsunoda was blunt: “Yes!”

With Red Bull appearing to test out whether or not Liam Lawson, who appeared as a super-sub for the former AlphaTauri squad last year before signing as reserve driver for the two Red Bull teams in 2024, might have the pace to jump straight into a Red Bull, Tsunoda may have to deal with being leapfrogged by the promising Kiwi driver.

Lawson carried out a filming day at Silverstone following the British Grand Prix, in order to gather promotional material for the team – the outing also allowed for some fast lappery towards the end in order to evaluate his speed.

If Lawson is chosen to replace Perez, Tsunoda hinted he would find that decision difficult to understand.

“If they choose Liam, that would be weird,” he said.

“But for me, at least, I don’t think so. Liam did a really good job when he drove the previous year. I think I did more than that. We’ll see how it goes. They know how to manage the drivers.”

More on the latest Red Bull F1 news

All the mid-season driver swaps Red Bull have made in their F1 history

Explained: Everything we know about Sergio Perez’s Red Bull future

But while Tsunoda may feel he deserves to be linked with the potentially vacant seat if Red Bull does decide to make changes and swap Perez out of his cockpit, he revealed there haven’t been any serious conversations about the possibility.

“Not like a clear one,” he said.

“General casual chat like this in hospitality and it all happens like that. But, also, they’re not really rushing it. Checo was alsoannounced two races or a race before…Checo might perform really well and if the drivers perform well, they don’t have reason to change the drivers so, I don’t know.

“For sure, it’s a good thing for Checo because they don’t want to create any pressure working with him and that’s definitely fair and also for myself, in the end, they want me to focus on what I’m doing right now. We don’t have serious conversations.”

Yuki Tsunoda not treating Hungarian and Belgian Grands Prix any differently

With the possibility of a change coming at the summer break, meaning the Hungarian and Belgian Grands Prix are particularly important to Perez and any drivers hoping to replace him, Tsunoda said he’s not treating the weekends any different.

“If the rumours are true, yes,” he said when asked if the two races are extra important, given the context.

“But to be honest, I don’t know any exact situation around, to be honest, it’s probably the same as you guys. Less information than you guys probably.

“In the end, every race is very important. Like myself, the contract is not really fixed, for long years, and in the end, same things as usual to be honest. In that in a sense yes.”

He also denied feeling any extra pressure heading into the double-header, saying: “Let’s see, so far I don’t feel much additional pressure anything. Those things will probably naturally come with different situations. There are a lot worse pressures than probably now. Probably now it’s good pressure rather than bad pressure. Last three years not knowing what you’re going to do next year, that’s worse. In the end, I’m very focused on the current Visa Cash App team and see how it goes.”

Read Next: Kevin Magnussen speaks out on Haas exit and reveals dreaded exit meeting