'It doesn't make sense' - Yuki Tsunoda puzzled by lack of Red Bull interest for F1 2025

Yuki Tsunoda doesn’t understand why he’s not been “in the mix” to join Red Bull for the 2025 F1 season.

The second Red Bull seat has continued to be a hot topic throughout the 2024 campaign amid Sergio Perez’s poor form.

Perez hasn’t finished on the podium since the Chinese Grand Prix back in April, with his poor results costing Red Bull in the constructors’ championship.

Daniel Ricciardo was thought to be in the frame to replace Perez after the break, but in the end, the Australian lost his seat a few races later to Liam Lawson.

Lawson was then rumoured to be the favourite to replace Perez next year, but Tsunoda has once again maintained the upper hand.

Speaking to media in Qatar, where Crash.net are present in the paddock, Tsunoda believes it’s “natural” for him to be next in line to get promoted to Red bull but feels the “dynamics” within Red Bull have changed since the death of Dietrich Mateschitz.

“Historically looking back, it’s pretty natural that the driver, for example, in our team, one of the drivers outperforms the other driver, like this consistently the last few years, get promoted,” he said.

“It’s kind of a natural thing I guess. I don’t know, maybe something changed. Yeah. Dynamics changed maybe after Red Bull itself changed, after… yeah, Mr. Mateschitz passed away, I don’t know.

“I mean, still one of the drivers going to drive the championship, the champion. The team who had success since quite a long time. What they’re doing is I guess not a bad thing, but it’s not, it doesn’t really make sense for me that I didn’t get in the mix much so far.

“Yeah. I don’t know much from myself, at least I can’t find much reason that they don’t really so far talking about me. But let’s see.”

Tsunoda downplays importance of Red Bull test

The Japanese driver will get an opportunity to drive the RB20 for the first time later this year.

Tsunoda will be in action for Red Bull at the post-season Abu Dhabi test.

It will be a chance for Tsunoda to impress Christian Horner and Helmut Marko ahead of the winter break where they might decide to make a change to their driver line-up.

However, Tsunoda feels the final two races of the season with RB are arguably more important.

“For now, from what I can imagine, the test, it’s just a test,” he added. “I mean, throughout the year so far, how they’re seeing the Red Bull, from the Red Bull, I feel like this test is just a test.

“It’s more definitely important for the next two races rather than the test. Hopefully the test will give a bit more better impression, or better picture how exactly who I am as a driver.

“But I think the next two races are definitely more important to be in that mix, talking about the seat.”