Red Bull’s Sergio Perez may have to deal with a new threat to his Formula 1 seat as Franz Tost claimed Yuki Tsunoda will be ready to driver for the Milton Keynes outfit in 2025.
Many thought, when Daniel Ricciardo joined Red Bull as a third driver at the end of the 2022 F1 season, that Sergio Perez will be looking over shoulder, as the team will have the perfect super-sub in case the Mexican fails to perform.
Perez was the first driver in years to be placed in a Red Bull F1 car that didn’t come from their junior driver program after Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly failed to perform alongside Max Verstappen, and it was a decent decision to be honest as he has delivered for now.
But it seems Red Bull are not ruling out putting Yuki Tsunoda in their car, as the Japanese is the latest driver to advance through their talent pool.
Tsunoda’s joined F1 in 2021 with AlphaTauri and was hyped for the talent he possesses, and despite scoring points on his debut at the 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix, he failed to deliver on Red Bull’s expectations as was rather out of control and erratic in his driving.
But Franz Tost and the powers that be at Red Bull didn’t give up on their latest protégé, and it seems he has finally come of age in 2023, after he somehow the team’s senior driver after Pierre Gasly moved to Alpine to be replaced by rookie Nyck de Vries.
An improved Tsunoda in 2023
“Yuki drove two extremely strong races so far. I am very happy with him,” Tost told the media ahead of the 2023 Australian Grand Prix. “It’s not his fault we aren’t competitive yet.
“As far as I know, Sergio Perez still has a contract for next year,” he responded when asked about the Japanese driver’s chances to join Red Bull any time soon. “All I can say is that Yuki is on the right track. He has improved in every aspect.
“But I think he should drive for AlphaTauri again in 2024. In 2025, I think he will finally be ready for Red Bull,” the AlphaTauri boss said of his driver Red Bull consultant Dr. Helmut Marko once labeled a “troubled child“.
Tsunoda actually scored his first points of the 2023 F1 season at last weekend race in Melbourne finishing tenth, and was as high as fifth at the second re-start following Kevin Magnussen’s crash, before the stewards reverted to the order before the carnage that happened, red-flagging the race again.
“I mean, without the red flag I score points in P5,” Tsunoda reflected. “These things happened behind myself after I passed Pierre [Gasly], so even without the incident I was having a P5. So it mega sucked after the red flag, a mega shame; I’ve been frustrated to end up P10.
“Still, the first score, first time in the points this season so we should take that, especially considering where we started,” the AlphaTauri driver added. “Considering how much we were struggling before the red flag, with warming up and getting the hard compound tyres in the optimum window.
“We should take this result and be happy with P10 as we maximised our performance,” Tsunoda concluded.