Tsunoda says he “still wants it” as Red Bull slows 2026 call — and his stock is quietly rising
Yuki Tsunoda isn’t playing coy. Asked where his head is as Red Bull weighs up its 2026 line-up, he didn’t reach for platitudes. “I still want it,” he said. No hedging, no caveats.
After Mexico City, the conversation around Tsunoda has changed in a way that suits him. He finished outside the points, yes, but he also spent a long afternoon on “maximum defence,” disrupting rivals at key moments and contributing to Max Verstappen’s podium run. It was the kind of unglamorous graft that teams notice, especially when everyone’s eyes are locked on a bigger decision.
Red Bull has already signalled the timing: a call will come before the Abu Dhabi finale in December. The delay, we’re told, owes in part to Tsunoda’s upturn in form. That’s a real thing this autumn — steadier Saturdays, sharper judgement on Sundays, fewer messy ends to promising weekends. Team boss Laurent Mekies even called it Tsunoda’s “best weekend in a long time” in terms of teamwork and qualifying pace, despite the empty scorecard in Mexico.
The awkward truth for Tsunoda is the same one he’s been living with all year: he’s not auditioning in a vacuum. Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar has turned heads across the paddock in 2025, and the junior pipeline is never short of momentum. One seat. Two compelling stories. Pick your gamble.
Tsunoda, for his part, is trying to keep his part of the bargain clean. “Points were easily possible,” he said after the race in Mexico. “Probably around P6, P7, so we just threw away the points from the places which, well, I couldn’t control. But what I’ve done was pretty good. I’ve just lost the points with the area I can’t control. So, very frustrating.”
That theme — control what you can — has become his drumbeat late in the year. He’s not pretending to know the timing or the politics. “I don’t know when exactly they’re going to decide it,” he admitted. “But I’m confident I maximised the things I can control. Pace, the start. Points were easily possible. Hopefully they consider that. I’ll just keep pushing where I can control and that’s it.”
Strip away the noise and the case for Tsunoda is straightforward. He’s faster over one lap than he gets credit for. He’s tidied the rough edges that once made team strategists nervous. And when asked to play the team game — as in Mexico — he executed without ego. That last bit matters in a title fight and always has at Red Bull.
Will it be enough against the tide of a hot prospect? That’s the wager. If Red Bull sees 2026 as a reset year with a new ruleset and wants a high-ceiling rookie to grow into the car, Hadjar’s surge is hard to ignore. If it values a battle-tested hand who’s already integrated and trending up, Tsunoda’s recent body of work is exactly the kind of late-season audition you’d want to deliver.
He knows the margins. He also knows the window is closing. “I’m always motivated,” he said. “In the second half of this season, I think at least I consistently showed something right. [Sunday] also could have ended up easily with a thing that I can’t bring it back home, quite nicely to the team. But I think this is my direction. I still want it, obviously.”
Red Bull’s decision will land soon enough. In the meantime, Tsunoda has a few more chances to make the choice feel obvious. Keep qualifying inside the cutline. Keep the elbows sharp when it counts. Keep the radio calm. The rest is out of his hands — and he seems, finally, at peace with that.
