There is no young driver program in Formula 1 as successful and prolific as the Red Bull Driver Academy. Since the team’s entry in the sport in 2005, such talents as Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo, and Carlos Sainz have entered the series through Red Bull’s junior team and gone on to take podiums, race victories, and in two instances, multiple World Championships.
However, this program has left a series of talented drivers sidelined, pushed too soon and dropped before they reached their peak. Drivers like Jean Eric Vergne and Sebastian Buemi were given short stints at the B-Team before being fired, and have since gone on to great success in sports cars and Formula E. Even those drivers promoted to the main team (which has won 8 of the last 15 World Driver’s Championships) find themselves teamed up with juggernaut Max Verstappen, and dropped before they find their footing. Pierre Gasly was promoted in his second Formula 1 season, and axed during the summer break. Alexander Albon replaced him, yet at the conclusion of the next season was dropped in favour of Sergio Perez. Both drivers have gone on to impress at other teams. At Alpha Tauri, Gasly became a Grand Prix winner in 2020 And at Williams, Albon swiftly became one of the swiftest drivers in the midfield.
After a poor 2024 season, Red Bull dropped Sergio Perez for 2025. Replacing him was not Daniel Ricciardo, who competed in partial 2023 and 2024 campaigns for the junior team, with a winning pedigree and history of close competition with Max Verstappen, or Yuki Tsunoda, who had dominated teammate Nyck De Vries in 2023 and looked to be maturing as a driver. Instead, they signed Liam Lawson, a junior driver who had only competed in eleven Formula 1 races over a partial season.
Lawson’s first two races for Red Bull have been disastrous. Teammate Verstappen has criticized the Red Bull race car as being very difficult to drive, requiring a precise set up and specific driving style. However, while Max nearly won the season opener in Australia, Lawson was a backmarker. He opened the season by getting knocked out in qualifying, then crashing out of the race, while left on slicks in wet conditions. He followed that up by qualifying last in China, going on to finish 16th.
If Lawson’s situation proves anything, it is that Red Bull’s system does not work, which should’ve been clear the other two times this same thing has happened. A driver like Max Verstappen, who can jump into the Red Bull at 18 years old and win his first race is very rare. Drivers need time to develop, and they need to do so without the massive media pressure of the Red Bull seat.
To see development done right, look at Mercedes’ George Russell. Entering F1 off the back of his F2 championship win, Russell spent three seasons at backmarker Williams, where he developed as a driver, showed flashes of real pace including a podium in 2021, but also made his fair share of silly mistakes, like when he crashed under safety car at Imola in 2020. Learning these lessons without the pressure of racing for a championship-contending team meant that when he partnered Lewis Hamilton in his fourth season, he hit the ground running, outscoring the seven-time champion and taking his debut win in Brazil. Lawson has not been given such an opportunity, instead being thrown into the fire while he is still developing as a driver, in a team very much based around its one star driver. Now, his career may be over before he got a chance to begin.
For Yuki, this golden opportunity at one of Formula 1’s top teams may turn out to be a nightmare. On his debut weekend for Red Bull, he’ll be at his home track of Suzuka, a notoriously difficult track, in a notoriously difficult car. Should Yuki struggle the way Lawson did, and worse yet, finish behind the sister team, as Lawson has done, how quickly will he be dropped as well? Rather than giving Yuki a winter to prepare with the team, he will be plucked from his seat into a car that frustrates even the best driver in the sport. Red Bull’s ruthlessness in firing drivers means that Yuki will have very little time before the threat of unemployment begins to pressure him, which may only make things worse.
Red Bull signing Tsunoda now after overlooking him last season should send him the message that they don’t see a future with him as a driver. My advice? He should avoid the second Red Bull seat, which was clearly cursed by Daniel Ricciardo, and wait out Fernando Alonso at Aston Martin. Yuki receives massive financial backing from Honda, who will begin solely supplying engines to Aston next year. Alonso is in the twilight of his career, and there’s no doubt Honda would like to see their man in their car.
If Yuki flounders at Red Bull, he may never get this chance, and be relegated to the same fate as other forgotten products of the Red Bull program like Daniil Kvyat and Scott Speed.
I hope he does well.
I hope so too. Japanese driver, in his big shot at the top team, at the Japanese Grand Prix? That’s like a dream come true.
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Hope it doesn’t turn into a nightmare. We’ll see next week.