Yuki Tsunoda to get extra Red Bull F1 testing before Miami GP

Yuki Tsunoda will get some private test running in an old Red Bull F1 car ahead of the Miami Grand Prix to help speed up his adaptation.

The Japanese racer was parachuted into Red Bull as a replacement for the underperforming Liam Lawson ahead of the third race of the 2025 season.

Tsunoda has fared better than Lawson in his three outings for Red Bull so far, reaching Q3 on two occasions and scoring points in Bahrain.

However, he has only managed to score two points from three races, after getting caught up in a race-ending accident with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly on Lap 1 of Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

After a session in Red Bull’s simulator on Tuesday, Tsunoda will be handed a day of running in the team’s 2023 RB19 car at Silverstone on Wednesday.

This test outing will fall under the Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) F1 teams are allowed to carry out during the year.

It is understood the test was planned when Tsunoda was promoted and is not a knee-jerk reaction to how he has performed over the past three races.

Red Bull hope the extra seat time will help Tsunoda make learnings that will ultimately accelerate his understanding of the tricky RB21 challenger.

It will also give Tsunoda the chance to sample one of Red Bull’s most competitive cars.

The RB19 won all but one of the 22 races in 2023 as Max Verstappen stormed to a third consecutive world title.

Speaking ahead of the weekend in Jeddah, Tsunoda said he believes he can Verstappen once he has unlocked everything from Red Bull’s 2025 car.

“It’s my first time driving a completely different car,” Tsunoda said.

“I only drove with VCARB for the last four years, so it’s the first time I drove a completely different team’s car.

“I’m trying to use that, and I know that if I unlock that area, I would be able to probably beat him.

“I know myself that I can’t beat him straight away, so I’m just trying to build a good baseline and wait for the moment that I can be in the shape, yeah.”