“Arigato, Yuki-san.”
Max Verstappen kept it short on the visor. Yuki Tsunoda answered in kind: “Enjoyed a lot being teammate with you. Nice memories. Thanks for the lessons.”
In Abu Dhabi, as the lights went down on Red Bull’s all-attack, all-intra-garage 2025 experiment, the pair capped their season as teammates with a helmet swap and a few lines that said more than any press release could. Tsunoda’s next lap will be in the simulator, not on Sunday grids — he moves into a test and reserve role with Red Bull next year — while Isack Hadjar steps up from Racing Bulls to partner Verstappen in 2026.
Helmet swaps are nothing new in F1, but the sentiment mattered here. Tsunoda took on the biggest ask in modern grand prix racing this year: go toe-to-toe with a four-time World Champion in equal machinery and make a case to stay. He didn’t land a 2026 race seat, and he’s honest about the sting, but the season didn’t pass him by either.
“Obviously, I can’t deny that he’s the best driver on the grid,” Tsunoda said over the Abu Dhabi weekend. “But at the same time, I’m happy that I was able to catch up quite quickly from this level, especially in this very, very tight field. You know, this year is one of the tightest fields in history.”
That’s been the quiet story of 2025 at Milton Keynes: Verstappen doing Verstappen things, and Tsunoda inching closer than many expected. He left behind a strong setup at Racing Bulls to take this shot, fully aware of the scale of the challenge, and it showed in a different version of Yuki — less ragged at the edges, more method in the madness, still quick over a lap.
Red Bull, for their part, now reshuffle with familiar focus. Tsunoda’s reserve role keeps him in the building and on the tools: simulator workload, development running, and a reliable race-weekend fallback. It also keeps continuity inside a team that thrives on it. He knows the car, the systems, the culture. In a landscape where tenths come from integration as much as innovation, that matters.
And then there’s Hadjar, the next rookie minted by the junior conveyor belt, stepping up to the most unforgiving yardstick in the sport. Verstappen, helmet swaps and thank-yous aside, remains the benchmark. The Frenchman arrives with momentum from Racing Bulls and the kind of crisp confidence Red Bull admires. But the bar is the bar.
For Tsunoda, Abu Dhabi felt like a full stop and a comma at once. The helmet swap was a nod to the tradition Pierre Gasly popularized a few years back, a small ceremony for a season of big asks. It’s not a farewell to the team — just a change of role — and he’ll be right there when 2026’s new era starts turning laps.
There’s an irony in seeing one of the grid’s most expressive racers move into a job defined by long nights and cumulative gains. Yet it might fit him. Tsunoda’s growth has been as much about discipline as speed, and Red Bull have a habit of extracting value from drivers who stick around. He’ll be on hand to shape setups, stress-test upgrades, and keep the race duo honest. If a chance opens, he’ll be warmed up, not cold.
The paddock will mostly remember the inscriptions: a simple thank you from Verstappen, and from Tsunoda a message that read like a chapter title rather than an epilogue. Nice memories, yes. Lessons, absolutely. And for a driver who’s always done things at full volume, this quieter next step might yet be the one that turns the page.
