16th place in qualifying, 17th place in the race, 18th place in the Formula 1 driver classification: On paper, Yuki Tsunoda’s performance at the Hungarian Grand Prix 2025 is disappointing on Hungaroring near Budapest. But Red Bull’s executive floor still praises the Japanese racing driver.
Sports director Helmut Marko, for example, recognizes “progress” at Tsunoda, as team boss Laurent Mekies has also observed – especially in qualifying. “The reality is: Yuki was probably two tenths behind Max in his career in his first attempt in Q1 and one and a half tenth in the second. That was a very strong indication, maybe his best so far,” says Mekies.
Marko agrees: Tsunoda has come Max Verstappen “as close as ever”, which Mekies linked to the recent increase in shape in Spa-Francorchamps: “Yuki and his technology team did a very good job.”
Tsunoda itself also sees his performance “positive” and, thanks to the recent technical updates at Red Bull “, thinks much closer to Max”.
“Especially about a quick round you can see that I reduce the distance. I think I can be proud of it. I will just go on like this.”
If Verstappen had been normal …
However, Mekies himself points out that the matter has a catch: Red Bull Daring drivers Verstappen had “not a particularly good day” in qualifying in Hungary. So would have been in normal form, Tsunoda’s gap would probably have been larger – and a real progress might not have been apparent.
Ultimately, however, the qualifying position even played the Red Bull manager in the cards because Tsunoda used the weak starting position to get additional drive components into his pool-including starting place.
“But otherwise he might have had to change in Monza or in Zandvoort, and because of his starting position it was strategically smarter to do it here,” explains Marko.
A race with high frustration potential for tsunoda
Tsunoda therefore knew about the hopelessness of the race right from the start: he was condemned to a race without prospect of World Cup points because overtaking in Hungary is extremely difficult. “It is normal for the frustration to be high,” says Mekies.
Because Tsunoda drove the field from the pit lane and never got out of the 14th intermediate rank. “I also had damage to the car from the middle of the race,” says Tsunoda. “This made me lost a lot of pace, but actually the basic pace was really weak.
As you could see on Verstappen, Red Bull “had to fight as a team in Hungary,” says Tsunoda.
So far, the racing team could not explain this low: “If we knew it, I would probably have had a much better pace because there would have been the opportunity to change something. But I still don’t think we know exactly what the problem is.”
The research begins immediately
However, Tsunoda wants to plunge into the processing immediately: “I am already at work on Monday and go to the simulator. I will continue to examine what the cause was. Hopefully we will find out a bit, because in Zandvoort there is a similar exhaustive level – and we don’t want to experience such a weekend again.”
So far, he can only state that the RB21 is currently “not the grip that we should actually have,” said Tsunoda. “That’s why we are very fighting both in qualifying and in the race.”
And that’s why there was no single-free strategy for him: “With the whole slide I had, I can’t imagine that. I also had the damage, so the pace would have been slow anyway.”
What Tsunoda thinks about the near future
So what does that mean for the second phase of the season after the Formula 1 summer break? “Let’s see,” says Tsunoda. “There is not much time to rest, because the pace that we lacked in the last race was surprising. But at the same time the field is very, very close together.”
“But what Red Bull has brought to updates in the first half of the season so far is impressive. I hope it goes on.”
“And to be honest, I hope that what we had to fight here was rather route -specific and does not have to do with the general speed of the car – but we definitely have to investigate that.”