Tsunoda Calls 2025 His Toughest F1 Season
NXTbets Pro | Published On: September 17, 2026
Tsunoda’s 2025 struggle
Yuki Tsunoda said his 2025 season with Red Bull was the toughest year of his career, and the pressure took a clear toll. He said the campaign left him mentally and physically exhausted, and that the push to close the gap to Max Verstappen drained much of the enjoyment from Formula 1. Tsunoda said he stopped being able to reset properly between race weekends, then lost the ability to relax in the second half of the season. He said he was “not really enjoying my life.” He also said he missed being around friends in Japan. During the hardest stretch, he leaned on psychology, training and other support to get through the strain. The season became less about confidence and more about managing the grind that came with trying to match one of the sport’s most demanding benchmarks.
RB21 setup issues
The RB21 never felt right to Tsunoda, and he said he still did not fully understand the car by the end of the year. He could not identify why he struggled to adapt. Tsunoda said his biggest mistake was trying to copy Verstappen’s setup, a move that made the handling problems worse instead of closing the gap. He said he was about eight tenths of a second off Verstappen in the RB21, a margin that underlined how hard it was to make the car work on his side of the garage. Tsunoda said he kept fighting through the difficulty. Even so, he said the hardship forced him to grow as a driver. He leaned on that idea as he worked through a season in which the technical challenge and the competitive pressure kept feeding each other.
Red Bull fallout
Tsunoda finished 2025 with 30 points and 17th place in the standings, then learned at the Qatar round that Red Bull would not keep him on for 2026. He later went back to Racing Bulls for the final three grands prix after Hadjar injured his wrist. Tsunoda said he fought really hard through the year and had no major regrets, even with the results falling short of what he wanted. His season ended with the largest points deficit ever to a teammate in Formula 1 history, a statistic that reflected how wide the split became inside the Red Bull program. Tsunoda’s own view was more measured than the numbers. He said the year was harsh, but he also said it made him better. That leaves him with a clear split from 2025, the fatigue and frustration of the Red Bull seat on one side, and the belief that the experience strengthened him on the other.
