Six-time F1 race winner Sergio Pérez opened up on his concerns for Yuki Tsunoda as the Japanese driver is set to make his Red Bull Racing debut at Suzuka in 11 days from now. Liam Lawson heads the other way to Racing Bulls.
The Mexican driver joined Red Bull Racing in 2021 following the decision of Racing Point/Aston Martin to sign Sebastian Vettel. Pérez won his maiden Grand Prix on his penultimate start with the team at the Sakhir GP, known then as Racing Point.
While Pérez managed to finish P2 in the Drivers’ Championship in 2023, and won five races with the team, his period at Red Bull Racing was extremely difficult. He finished 290 points behind Max Verstappen in 2023, and it was 285 last year. 2024 was the killer one, however, with the 35-year-old only 8th in the Drivers’ Championship as the Dutchman won the title.
Diego Mejía reveals the concerns Sergio Pérez has for Yuki Tsunoda
Speaking on the Only Drivers Podcast, highly respected F1 journalist Diego Mejía told the host about the serious worries Sergio Pérez disclosed to him privately about Yuki Tsunoda getting promoted to Red Bull Racing after he left the Milton Keynes-based F1 team.
2025 marks Tsunoda’s fifth season in the sport, a relatively solid amount of experience for any driver at this point. By the time Pérez had joined Red Bull Racing, he had already done ten seasons in the sport.
In recent years, but especially in 2020 and 2024, the Red Bull cars have been almost impossible to drive unless your name is Max Verstappen. Even last year the four-time World Champion had serious difficulties with the RB20, with ‘Checo’ getting an apology from engineers at the team as well.
Liam Lawson was promoted at the start of 2025 after just 11 Grands Prix in the sport, and he only had two horrible weekends at Red Bull Racing before this brutal call was made.
“Next on the list is Tsunoda. At some point, I talked about it with Checo, and he told me, “hopefully they don’t put Yuki in”. Because he knows,” Mejía said.
“When Checo arrived at Red Bull, he already had 10 seasons in Formula 1. He knew very well what was happening internally and what was going on with the car.
“Of course, when bad results pile up week after week, there comes a point where people say, ‘the problem is you, not the car’.
“But with everything that’s happening, we’re seeing that there really is an issue at Red Bull. Several, actually—because Newey is no longer there to solve the problems with this new car, which apparently isn’t much better than last year’s.”
Co-author: Fernanda Álvarez
