Pierre Gasly knows better than most what the Red Bull pressure cooker feels like. Plucked from Toro Rosso to the senior team in 2019 and sent back mid-season, he’s lived the churn. So when he talks about how Yuki Tsunoda should handle the noise around his own future, it carries some weight.
Tsunoda’s seat beyond this season remains unresolved, even as he’s been one of the brighter storylines of Red Bull’s year. A tidy sixth in Baku marked his best result since stepping up, though the intrigue runs deeper: behind him, the Red Bull pipeline is humming. Liam Lawson is making the Racing Bulls look lively on Sundays, and Isack Hadjar’s name keeps surfacing in 2026 conversations. The atmosphere is familiar — options, timelines, and a power unit era change just around the corner — and hardly designed to quiet a driver’s mind.
Gasly’s advice? Strip it back.
“I think, ultimately, he needs to work out what’s the best way of focusing on the performance because, at the end of the day, the only thing that matters when you’re in a competitive sport is the performance you put out there,” Gasly said, speaking as a friend as much as a rival. “That’s the main thing, cutting the noise.”
It’s simple, almost cliché, but anyone who’s been through the Red Bull mill knows simplicity isn’t easy. The scrutiny is relentless, the ladder is full, and one off-weekend can spiral into a narrative. Tsunoda has found speed this year and, crucially, more consistency — the currency that tends to buy patience in Milton Keynes. But the measuring stick is brutal: internal benchmarks, a championship leader across the garage, and a sister team producing comparison points every weekend.
Inside the wider Red Bull camp, Tsunoda’s Baku work drew praise — a smart drive, no fuss, banked points. Still, a weekend like that won’t decide 2026 on its own. There’s a long runway of races left, and Red Bull historically takes its time on calls that ripple across both teams. The question is whether Tsunoda keeps stacking those quiet, efficient Sundays while Lawson and Hadjar keep making cases of their own.
Gasly, now secure at Alpine through 2028, has kept the conversation with Tsunoda direct. The pair remain close from their time as teammates and near-neighbors in the Red Bull system, and Gasly’s made a point of reminding him to control only what he can.
“There are always going to be a lot of talks, a lot of noise around,” he said. “You need to find a way that it just doesn’t get to your head… You’ve just got to wake up every day thinking: ‘How am I going to get better at what I’m doing?’”
There’s some irony here. Gasly’s own reinvention came once he was out of the direct blast zone, turning that 2019 bruiser into podiums and a famous Monza win. Tsunoda doesn’t have the luxury of distance; he has to deliver with the spotlight on, now. The encouraging bit for Red Bull is that his peaks are edging up and the troughs are fewer. The flip side is Red Bull rarely ignores the bottom line: qualifying deltas, race pace trends, execution under pressure.
What will likely matter most from here to Abu Dhabi is the accumulation: Q3s, clean starts, decisive passes, and points made routine. Beat the car’s baseline and match (or better) the internal models, and decisions start to tilt your way. Anything less and the queue at the door only gets louder.
Gasly’s right to frame it simply. For Tsunoda, the path isn’t complicated — it’s just demanding. Keep making the conversation about lap time, not headlines. Cut the noise. The rest tends to sort itself out at Red Bull, one way or another.
