“I’m not enjoying life” – How Yuki Tsunoda’s Red Bull F1 stint “exhausted” him
In the pre-2026 Formula 1 eras, Red Bull’s second seat made quite a few casualties.
Pierre Gasly, Alexander Albon, Sergio Perez, Liam Lawson. All of them struggled – and eventually failed – to match team-mate Max Verstappen’s performance, regardless of their multifarious stint lengths, and it sometimes took a toll on their mental health.
Perez got four years alongside Verstappen, then Lawson just two grands prix at the start of the 2025 season, and in came Yuki Tsunoda – with a nearly full campaign to prove his worth, but on the back foot given he had never driven the RB21 prior to his midseason team switch.
Tsunoda struggled throughout the campaign and finished 17th in the drivers’ standings, while runner-up Verstappen missed the world title by two points.
In the Beyond The Grid podcast, the Japanese opened up about how draining that situation was, as he strove to get closer to Verstappen – to no avail.
“Definitely, 2025 was the toughest year in my career, and I learned heaps of things,” Tsunoda said.
“I’m the kind of person, as soon as I had good food or whatever, I was able to reset myself between the race weeks. But I started to really struggle, towards the second half of the season especially; somehow when I came back to my house, I felt very exhausted.
Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images
“Normally I’m able to reset myself, get back this energy after I had something that I really like, if I do something that I really like. But I didn’t feel that energy, [it] never came back, and the races just kept going and going, going, going.
“I had so much up and down, and at some point I just recognised myself that I’m not really enjoying my life, I would say, like I’m not really enjoying the situation, not really enjoying driving Formula 1 probably as much as I was doing the first three years.
“So, it was a very tough time, and outside of racing, try to solve this issue, right? What can I do to help that? And if I look back, is there something else other than eating food or this stuff? What makes me happy? And normally it’s friends, but mostly friends in Japan and… Okay, I really recognised, actually I’m away from Japan. That I really never thought about since probably my first year in F3.
“Okay, this is tough, something that I have to resolve myself. I got help quite a lot with psychology, trainer and a lot of things, but the race [schedule] was pretty busy in the second half, so it was a pretty tough time. But at the same time, the year gave me the opportunity to look myself through a lot more than any other years.”
Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Bryn Lennon / Formula 1 via Getty Images
Tsunoda ended up losing his seat on the grid, as Isack Hadjar was promoted to Red Bull and Arvid Lindblad made his F1 debut at Racing Bulls; he became both teams’ reserve driver.
Tsunoda eventually got to return to the Italian squad after Hadjar injured his wrist over the summer break and Lawson stood in for the Frenchman at Red Bull, vacating a seat for Tsunoda at Racing Bulls. This allowed the 26-year-old to take part in the latest three grands prix, starting from Zandvoort, and he feels like he has become a better driver following his 2025 hardship.
“Not sure I’m gonna have that much pressure and struggle, difficult times, as much as I had in 2025,” he added. “So everything comes so far with big challenges. Somehow I’m able to enjoy that kind of pressure moments and I feel very comfortable.
“Jumping into the car that I’ve never driven, spring qualifying format, VCARB team’s doing really well, running P5 in the teams’ championship – you can’t really mess up for the race, you want to have points. Somehow I was like, I really feel okay, I didn’t feel that much pressure.”
Will anything in his career ever be as hard as what he went through last year?
“I don’t think so.”
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