Yuki Tsunoda’s most on-brand deal yet has landed: the self-confessed paddock foodie has teamed up with Gordon Ramsay to front cookware outfit HexClad.
The announcement dropped with a slick video of Tsunoda cooking a steak for Ramsay — a man who’s collected 17 Michelin stars and isn’t exactly loose with his praise. The pairing makes sense. Long before his points tallies or radio rants grabbed headlines, Tsunoda built a niche as F1’s resident food scout, happily talking local cuisine in Thursday pressers and, after moving from the UK to Italy in 2022, insisting the better food and sunshine left him feeling more energetic at the track.
He’s leaned into it ever since. There’ve been team and F1 cooking videos, plenty of fan-captured clips of him rating restaurants, and in 2023 he even admitted the post-racing dream: open a restaurant — once he’s ticked off the small matter of becoming Formula 1 World Champion. “I’ve always loved food ever since I was a kid and my motivation depended on the quality of the food I’d have that day,” he said back then, adding that Japanese cuisine remains his touchstone, with Italian and Mexican (tacos in particular) close behind.
The Ramsay collab — unveiled on Instagram — felt like the internet’s version of destiny fulfilled. Comments rolled in along predictable, joyous lines. “Oh this is perfect,” wrote one. Another chimed in: “Didn’t know I needed a TV show with Yuki and Gordon Ramsay but here we go. Please.” Tsunoda’s former trainer Michael Italiano went cheekier still: “There’s no way you cooked that meat. Looks way too good.”
If this sounds like a neat bolt-on to a driver’s commercial roster, it’s more than that. In a paddock increasingly obsessed with authenticity, Tsunoda’s brand is as organic as they come. He talks food, he eats food, he cooks food — and now he’s selling the pans. It’s tidy business.
On track, Tsunoda heads to Zandvoort this weekend for the Dutch Grand Prix, where the high-energy, high-downforce shuffle around the banking tends to expose who’s really comfortable with a car beneath them. Off track, don’t be surprised if he’s crowdsourcing the best local ramen between sessions. It’s Yuki. He’s going to eat. And now, apparently, he’s bringing the cookware.
