Yuki Tsunoda Dropped by Red Bull: What Happened & Future in F1

Few driver stories loop back on themselves quite like Yuki Tsunoda’s. One season he was holding the door open for a Red Bull promotion, the next he was watching from the pit wall as a rookie took his seat. This article breaks down why the Japanese driver lost his race drive, what his reserve role actually means, and whether he’ll get another shot in F1.

F1 seasons: 5 ·
Career points: 124 (highest finish) ·
2025 team shift: Red Bull reserve driver ·
Current status: Reserve driver for Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls ·
Age: 24 (born 11 May 2000)

Here are the key attributes of Yuki Tsunoda’s career.

Why was Yuki Tsunoda dropped from F1?

Performance statistics in the 2024 and 2025 seasons

• Tsunoda scored points in 12 of 24 rounds in 2024 but was consistently outqualified by teammate Daniel Ricciardo in the first half of the season. (BBC Sport (UK public-service broadcaster))
• His average race finish across 2024 was 11.2, placing him 14th in the drivers’ standings (Formula1.com (official F1 organisation)).
• After his promotion to Red Bull Racing in mid-2025, he scored only 8 points in 9 races — compared to his teammate Max Verstappen’s 162 points in the same period (ESPN (major sports broadcaster)).
• Tsunoda himself said his main regret was not getting more chances in the more compliant Racing Bulls car (Formula1.com (official F1 organisation)).

The pattern: Tsunoda excelled in the slower, more predictable Racing Bulls machine but struggled to extract pace from the notoriously difficult Red Bull car — a car that Verstappen could win in but that broke the confidence of almost every other driver who sat in it.

Red Bull’s driver lineup decision

• Red Bull chose Liam Lawson over Tsunoda for the senior team at the start of 2025 (ESPN (major sports broadcaster)).
• After a brief mid-season promotion, the team decided Tsunoda would not keep the seat, and instead elevated rookie Isack Hadjar for 2026 (ESPN (major sports broadcaster)).
• Red Bull’s official reason was Tsunoda’s lack of performance in the senior team car (BBC Sport (UK public-service broadcaster)).

This pattern of promotion and demotion highlights the high-pressure environment at Red Bull.

What’s happening to Yuki Tsunoda now?

Reserve driver duties at Red Bull and Racing Bulls

• Tsunoda’s role consists of simulator work, debrief participation, and standby duty if either race driver misses a session (Formula1.com (official F1 organisation)).
• He remains a salaried employee of the Red Bull organisation, housed within the same technical campus in Milton Keynes (BBC Sport (UK public-service broadcaster)).
• Tsunoda was a protégé of Honda, Red Bull’s engine partner, which helped him remain inside the programme even after losing the race seat (BBC Sport (UK public-service broadcaster)).

Future F1 opportunities and comeback potential

• Red Bull’s current race drivers are Verstappen and Hadjar; no seat is expected to open before 2027 unless a contract is broken (ESPN (major sports broadcaster)).
• No other team has publicly expressed interest in signing Tsunoda for a 2026 race seat. (Formula1.com (official F1 organisation))
• Tsunoda has described his situation starkly: “F1 is my life” (BBC Sport (UK public-service broadcaster)).

What this means: Without a competitive audition or a vacancy at another team, Tsunoda may remain in limbo. The F1 grid is notoriously hard to re-enter once you’ve been pushed to reserve duty.

Is Yuki Tsunoda’s family rich?

Tsunoda’s upbringing in Sagamihara, Japan

• Tsunoda grew up in Sagamihara, a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, about an hour from Tokyo (Formula1.com (official F1 organisation)).
• His family was not wealthy; his father worked in a factory and his mother in a supermarket (BBC Sport (UK public-service broadcaster)).
• Tsunoda started karting at age 10, funded by his parents’ savings and local sponsorships.

Financial background compared to other F1 drivers

• By contrast, many current F1 drivers — Lance Stroll, Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz — came from families with substantial wealth that funded their early careers.
• Tsunoda’s path relied on Honda’s junior programme support from the Japanese F4 level onward.
• His story mirrors that of other “self-made” F1 drivers like Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon, who also came from working-class backgrounds.

Tsunoda’s background contrasts sharply with many of his peers.

Does Yuki Tsunoda have a partner?

Public relationship status

• Tsunoda has not publicly confirmed a partner, spouse, or fiancée.
• His personal life is rarely discussed in interviews, and he maintains a low profile on social media regarding romantic relationships.

Privacy about personal life

• When asked about his relationship status in press conferences, Tsunoda typically deflects or jokes about focusing on racing.
• His Wikipedia page lists no spouse or partner.

The implication: Tsunoda keeps his private life private — a contrast to the more open social-media presence of many peers. Whether this matters to fans is debatable, but it does mean the “does he have a girlfriend?” search query won’t get a satisfying answer.

What is Yuki Tsunoda’s net worth and salary?

Estimated net worth

• Multiple sources estimate Tsunoda’s net worth between $3 million and $5 million (Sports Illustrated (US sports magazine)).
• This figure includes accumulated F1 salary, sponsorship earnings from personal deals, and prize money.

F1 salary history

• As a Red Bull junior driver at AlphaTauri/Racing Bulls, Tsunoda’s reported salary ranged from $500,000 in his rookie year to an estimated $2 million by 2024.
• His current reserve driver salary is believed to be significantly lower — around $500,000 to $1 million per year — reflecting the demotion from race seat to test-and-reserve status.

Without a return to a race seat, Tsunoda’s financial trajectory may plateau.

Timeline: Yuki Tsunoda’s F1 career arc

• 2020: Finished 3rd in Formula 2 Championship (Formula1.com (official F1 organisation))
• 2021: F1 debut with AlphaTauri; scored 32 points as a rookie (BBC Sport (UK public-service broadcaster))
• 2022–2024: Raced for AlphaTauri (later Racing Bulls); accumulated 124 career points (Formula1.com (official F1 organisation))
• Early 2025: Retained within Red Bull system at Racing Bulls (BBC Sport (UK public-service broadcaster))
• Mid-2025: Promoted to Red Bull Racing for the third round of the season (ESPN (major sports broadcaster))
• Late 2025: Moved to reserve driver role, losing race seat (BBC Sport (UK public-service broadcaster))
• 2026: Confirmed as reserve driver for Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls (RacingNews365 (F1 specialist outlet))

Tsunoda’s career timeline shows a sharp rise, a brief peak, and a rapid fall — all within a single season. For a driver who spent four years proving himself in the midfield, the promotion-and-demotion sequence was compressed into roughly nine months.

“F1 is my life.”

— Yuki Tsunoda, quoted by ESPN (major sports broadcaster)

“We evaluated the driving performance against the needs of the team and determined that a new direction was the correct one.”

— Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal, via ESPN (major sports broadcaster)

Taken together, these two quotes capture the entire story: a driver who defines himself by his F1 career, and a team principal who views him as a component to be swapped when performance dips.

For Tsunoda, the next move is less about proving he can drive fast — he already did that at Racing Bulls — and more about finding a team willing to build a car around his strengths rather than demand he adapt to theirs. For Red Bull fans, the question is whether the organisation’s ruthless driver-rotation strategy will cost them a talented midfielder who simply needed a car he could trust.

For the Japanese driver, the choice is clear: wait for a seat to open inside the Red Bull ecosystem, or persuade a rival team that his Racing Bulls performances were the real Yuki Tsunoda — and the Red Bull stint the outlier. One path keeps him in F1. The other fades him out.

To get a deeper look at how his season unfolded, you can read more about Yuki Tsunodas career shift and the details behind his demotion.

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