Yuki Tsunoda is running out of runway at Red Bull — and Jacques Villeneuve isn’t in the mood for euphemisms.
After Mexico, where Tsunoda qualified and finished just outside the points in P11, Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies praised the Japanese driver’s weekend as a step forward, even suggesting his pace was comparable to Max Verstappen’s before a slow stop compromised the result. Villeneuve’s response? That kind of talk “overprotects” a driver who, in his view, isn’t delivering enough for a team fighting on multiple fronts.
“Not bringing anything to the table,” the 1997 world champion said on Sky’s F1 podcast, taking aim at Tsunoda’s contribution in pace, points and support for Verstappen’s title tilt. The comparison is brutal but simple: Verstappen continues to be Verstappen; Tsunoda still hasn’t outqualified him and hasn’t turned enough Sundays into scores since stepping into the senior team after the early rounds.
Mekies, who knows Tsunoda well from their time together at the sister squad, has been keen to point out the progress. The team’s Mexico narrative hung on a small operational error costing a shot at the top 10, and on a broader trend of Tsunoda’s form nudging upwards since the summer break. It’s an understandable stance for a boss managing a fragile situation: confidence matters, continuity matters, and turning the screw in public rarely extracts performance.
Villeneuve, though, doesn’t buy the framing. To him, telling the world a driver had “his best weekend in a long time” doesn’t pass the sniff test if the scoreboard stays blank and the gap to the other garage remains obvious. Strip away the spin and it comes down to a blunt question: can Tsunoda affect Red Bull’s season in a meaningful way right now? Not just by scraping a Q3 or inheriting a point, but by changing the picture against McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri on Sundays. That’s where Villeneuve says the answer is still no.
This all plugs straight into the bigger decision looming over Milton Keynes. Red Bull has pushed back its 2026 driver call to the end of the season, with Mekies citing recent improvements as a reason to take more time. “We have no reason to rush,” he told reporters, adding that several young candidates are also trending up. Read into that what you like, but the message is clear enough: the door’s open, and Tsunoda can still walk through it — he just has to prove he should.
The external pressure doesn’t help. With Honda set to join forces with Aston Martin from 2026, Tsunoda had been linked to a reserve role there. That avenue looks colder after Aston named American F2 talent Jak Crawford as third driver for next season. Within the Red Bull system, the paddock noise is loud: Isack Hadjar is tipped for a senior seat after an eye-catching rookie year, Arvid Lindblad is widely expected to be fast-tracked to the sister team, and that would leave Tsunoda scrapping — likely with Liam Lawson — for what might be a single available chair. None of that is official, but it’s the kind of speculation that forces a driver to take matters into his own hands.
So what does he need? Boring weekends — in the best sense. Clean Saturdays that put him squarely in the top 10 without caveats. No-adjective Sundays that turn track position into points, quietly, relentlessly. And on the odd day Verstappen is vulnerable, Tsunoda has to be there to protect strategy, back up the lead car, and take points off McLaren. That’s how you make yourself indispensable in a team that doesn’t do sentiment.
The irony is Tsunoda’s story this year isn’t one of chaos or headline errors. It’s the drip-drip frustration of almost. Almost in Q3. Almost in the points. Almost in support range when Verstappen needs a tail gunner. That’s the kind of season that can slip away without a single big mistake to point at — and it’s exactly the sort that inflames critics like Villeneuve, who’d rather see a high ceiling with rough edges than a plateau.
Mekies is holding the line publicly, and there’s logic in that. A driver who feels trusted is more likely to deliver under pressure. But trust isn’t tenure. The Abu Dhabi deadline is coming, and Red Bull’s standards don’t bend for anyone. If Tsunoda wants to shut down the debate, the only language that works is points on the board and purple sectors when it counts.
The rest is just noise.
