Yuki Tsunoda in manager split after Red Bull F1 promotion snub

Yuki Tsunoda has changed his management team after missing out on a promotion to the Red Bull senior team for the 2025 F1 season.

The 24-year-old Japanese racer missed out on a Red Bull drive to Liam Lawson after Sergio Perez was ditched by the team following his woeful 2024 campaign.

Despite only completing 11 grands prix and not convincingly beating Tsunoda during their brief spell together at Red Bull’s sister Racing Bulls team, Lawson ultimately got the nod to become Max Verstappen’s next teammate.

After being overlooked by Red Bull, Tsunoda is now spending his fifth season at Racing Bulls in 2025 alongside F1 rookie Isack Hadjar.

Ahead of the new season, Tsunoda has reshuffled his management team.

Tsunoda had been managed by Mario Miyakawa and Luis Alvarez but it has now emerged, via a report from Motorsport, that he parted ways with both “shortly after the 2024 season ended in December”.

For the 2025 season, Tsunoda will be managed by Diego Menchaca, a Mexican who raced in European single-seaters before switching to sports cars in 2018.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has hinted that Tsunoda could leave the Red Bull family when his contract expires at the end of 2025.

"We're acutely aware that if we're not able to provide an opportunity for Yuki [at Red Bull] in all honesty this year, does it [keeping him on] make sense?,” Horner said.

"You can't have a driver in the support team for five years. You can't always be the bridesmaid. You've either got to let them go at that point or look at something different.”

Tsunoda wasn’t ‘angered’ by latest Red Bull snub

Speaking to media including Crash.net at the F1 75 season launch in London, Tsunoda insisted that he was not angered by Red Bull’s decision.

“It’s last year’s things that I already kind of parked, and I’m like a bit away from my head, to be honest.

“The moment they officially announced, I would say, I didn’t actually feel that super, super, like, angry or disappointed at that point, to be honest.

“To be honest, maybe I was prepared inside of my head at some point, but in the end, whatever, even when I go to Racing Bulls, VCARB or Red Bull, the things I have to do are the same.

“So, you know, in both ways, you can do pretty cool projects in any way.

“Maybe if I go to Red Bull, you know, maybe team-mate [to] Max, it’s not easy, but at the same time, it’s cool things, and you can prove yourself, you know, in a different stage.

“Even with VCARB it’s different things that I’ve never probably experienced, more like leadership, I guess, is the things that I have to also, at some point, develop myself more.

“So, yeah, I think I just kind of stick to what I’m doing. I understand why they chose Liam, and yeah, it is what it is.

“It’s the things I can control and respect that, and yeah, definitely still have hope [about a Red Bull seat] into this season.

“I just keep focused on what I have to do, and prove myself more than I [should be] in Formula 1, just in general, I guess.”