Yuki Tsunoda heads into his fifth F1 season in 2025 as an established driver in both the category and at Racing Bulls, and the Japanese driver discussed it ahead of the Australian GP this weekend.
Yuki Tsunoda up for the extra responsibility as team leader at Racing Bulls F1
Since his debut at the 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix, the 24-year-old has generally been the junior driver. Pierre Gasly made his debut in 2017, with Daniel Ricciardo starting out in 2011. He would see off the Australian last year.
Nonetheless, he has history of leading the team when Nyck de Vries and Liam Lawson were his teammates and had less F1 experience. Despite faring very well against the Kiwi, Lawson got the coveted Red Bull drive for this year.
Speaking in his print media session ahead of the F1 Australian GP, Tsunoda is ready to be the number 1 with rookie Isack Hadjar alongside him, while also explaining how he felt he was in a very good spot in 2024 already.
“I didn’t really think about it, but I feel definitely more, I would say, responsible.
“But at the same time, maybe I was just misunderstanding by myself, but last year, beginning of the season, in a similar time like now, I was feeling obviously not strong as much as now, but a similar feeling because already I was fourth season into this team.
“I know Daniel was an experienced driver, but at the same time, team expecting to be more than [just around] Daniel, because, especially first race, I knew about the car more. So, not much difference.
“I know it’s going to be a very tight fight, and extracting the performance from the car 100% in each race will be very crucial, more than developing the car this year, I guess.
”So yeah, I’m feeling ready obviously, but a bit more responsibility, yeah.”
Yuki Tsunoda happy to help Isack Hadjar out in his rookie season at Racing Bulls F1
In his first F1 season at AlphaTauri, now named Racing Bulls, Tsunoda was blown away by Pierre Gasly. Accidents, spins, a lack of pace and frustration over the radio spoiled his rookie season, even if clear potential was shown on occasions.
Since then, the Japanese driver has come on leaps and bounds both inside and outside the car, doing an excellent job against his teammates. Laurent Mekies has not been shy to praise him.
Should rookie Isack Hadjar struggle at the start of the new F1 season, Racing Bulls teammate Tsunoda is more than happy to help out.
He also explained what he learned from Gasly in his own rookie season.
“Yeah, I would say so, definitely.
“I mean, if he’s [Hadjar’s] in a [tough] situation, I hope not, but struggling or whatever, I’ll help as much as possible if I can.
“I think with these kind of top 20 drivers in the world, he knows also how they recover from any hard situation.
“So, in the end, what I’ve done also in the first year was, I mean, I didn’t really necessarily ask Pierre what should I do or whatever, I just looked up to a him, how he’s behaving in the team, how he prepared for the race.
“And those things naturally you get it from the drivers. Isack, anyway, he’s fast, and I’m sure it’s a different situation to mine, so, let’s see.”
