Tsunoda says Red Bull ‘finally makes sense’ in Baku — and Marko isn’t pulling the plug mid-season
Yuki Tsunoda walked out of Friday in Baku with something he hasn’t had much of since stepping up to Red Bull: belief. The RB21, a car that’s had him chasing its tail since his promotion, suddenly behaved on long runs. “Now it makes sense,” he said, almost surprised at the words coming out.
The lap times told a similarly odd story. Sixth in FP1 — ahead of Max Verstappen — then down the order in FP2, but Tsunoda was unbothered. The day, he said, was about mileage and learning rather than a glossy time-sheet. “It’s good,” he shrugged. “Short run there’s room to put it all together. But we focused on the long run, and that seems much better. I’ve never seen that kind of thing so far this year in the long run… now it makes sense.”
It’s a timely mood swing. As the 2026 driver market starts to harden, Tsunoda’s name keeps getting circled. He was promoted to the senior team after Liam Lawson’s difficult start in a notoriously prickly RB21, with the expectation that Tsunoda’s experience would help steer development and steady the ship. Instead, the points have been scarce and the narrative unforgiving.
Red Bull’s Helmut Marko has kept the noise down — at least by his standards. He reiterated Red Bull’s internal timeline to assess Tsunoda’s future around Mexico, and made it clear there’s no emergency eject button coming this year. No mid-season drop, no surprise swap. That buys Tsunoda a handful of races to turn flashes into foundations.
It helps that Red Bull smell opportunity here. “The long runs, we are promising,” Marko said in Baku. “I think we are in a position to fight at the front. On the qualifying lap, we must find one tenth, one tenth and a half. But that’s possible with fine-tuning.” He even pointed out “roughly half a tenth” in hand on engine modes, the kind of line that usually precedes a confident Saturday. “I think we can prove here that Monza was not a one-off,” he added, backing Verstappen to land in the top three and fight for the win.
Marko, notably, stopped short of calling Tsunoda’s shot. The equipment is identical, he said — “Yuki is the same equipment, like Max” — but the rest was left hanging. That’s fair. This Red Bull is sensitive, particularly over a single lap, and Tsunoda’s up-and-down Fridays have often turned into more of the same on Sundays.
Baku, though, tends to reward drivers who settle early with the brakes, learn the tailwind in Sector 2, and keep a cool head when the slipstream games start. If Tsunoda’s long-run balance really has clicked, it could be the kind of weekend that earns him time — and leverage — in discussions about 2026.
The stakes are obvious. Red Bull don’t play charity with race seats, and the junior pipeline has never been shy. The pitch for Tsunoda, until now, has been intangible: experience, setup feel, development direction. That only goes so far without results to pin it to. A clean Baku, points on merit, and a competitive Sunday stint would change the temperature of the room.
It’s also clear the team believes the car’s window is widening. “The momentum goes,” Marko said. “The car has a wider window, and it’s easier to set up. That definitely is a step forward.” If that’s true, the driver most likely to cash it in is Verstappen. For Tsunoda, it lowers the barrier to entry. Less knife-edge, more repeatable. Fewer booby traps for a driver still learning where the RB21 wants to be pushed — and where it absolutely doesn’t.
There’s a version of this story where Friday’s optimism fades under qualifying pressure. There’s another where Tsunoda strings together a tidy lap, starts inside the top 10, and then lets the Baku race come to him while everyone else gets greedy. One of those outcomes keeps his 2026 hopes alive.
For now, the tone inside Red Bull is measured, not manic. No ultimatums. No ballroom reshuffles. Just a driver who finally found a car that did what it was told, and a team open to being persuaded that this is the start of something — not another false dawn.
