Yuki Tsunoda didn’t reach for the usual platitudes. Asked on Red Bull’s own Talking Bull podcast to sum up each of his Formula 1 teammates in a single word, he took a beat on Daniel Ricciardo, tried “teacher,” then shook his head and settled on “mentor.”
It fits. The pair shared a garage across late 2023 and much of 2024 at AlphaTauri/RB, when Ricciardo was the battle-scarred race winner trying to clear a path back to the top seat and Tsunoda was still stitching his game together. One had the mileage, the other the raw edges. It wasn’t a long partnership, but it clearly left a mark.
Ricciardo stepped away after the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix, closing the book on a career that delivered eight grand prix victories and a raft of highlight-reel moments. He’s since re-emerged on the other side of the fence as a Ford Racing ambassador. Tsunoda, meanwhile, made the step up to Red Bull in 2025, now paired with Max Verstappen.
On the pod, the one-word rule got stretched as Tsunoda worked through his roster of colleagues. Pierre Gasly, his first F1 teammate in 2021, was “brother.” Isack Hadjar, the rookie Tsunoda briefly lined up alongside for the opening two rounds of 2025 at Racing Bulls before his own call-up, was “bro” too — but said with a grin that implied a different kind of energy. Nyck de Vries, whom Ricciardo replaced back in 2023, prompted a small debate until Tsunoda landed on “old friends.”
And then came Verstappen. Tsunoda’s word? “Gin tonic.” Not exactly in the spirit of the assignment, but it survived the edit because, as Tsunoda admitted, Verstappen introduced him to the drink. Two teammates, one shared vice. File that under things you won’t find on a timing screen.
The Ricciardo pick is the telling one, though. Tsunoda’s early F1 seasons were all pace and temper — speed without the scaffolding. Working next to a driver like Ricciardo, who knows when to lift the mood and when to drill into the data, offered a blueprint. The Australian’s influence isn’t about apex speeds; it’s about how to carry yourself through a weekend, how to reset after a bad lap, how to bring a team with you.
That matters more than ever now. Tsunoda’s in the deep end at Red Bull in 2025, and everyone knows what happens to teammates there: you’re measured to Verstappen every Saturday and Sunday, whether you like it or not. The margins are brutal and the spotlight is colder. The “mentor” lessons — the composure, the calibration — are currency.
As for the rest of Tsunoda’s word game, it doubles as a snapshot of his climb through F1’s ecosystem. Gasly was the early shepherd. De Vries was a familiar face from junior days. Hadjar is the next-wave talent breathing in the same air Tsunoda was a few years ago. Verstappen is the yardstick. Together they form a neat little storyline of Yuki’s five-season evolution — from the rookie who swore on the radio like a sailor to the Red Bull race-winner-in-waiting the team believes it can polish.
He’ll need to prove that hunch right, and soon. 2026 lurks with new regulations and all the musical chairs that tends to bring. Tsunoda is battling to lock down his place alongside Verstappen for that reset. Perform, and the decision makes itself. Blink, and a “bro” becomes a threat.
But for now, it’s a rare modern F1 admission that resonates. Drivers aren’t often generous with each other in public. Tsunoda calling Ricciardo a mentor acknowledges something the paddock has long recognized about the “Honey Badger”: beyond the smiles and shoeys was a racer whose biggest legacy might be the way he sharpened those around him. If that rubs off in the cockpit of a Red Bull RB21, “mentor” could end up being the most consequential word of Tsunoda’s season.
