(Motorsport-Total.com) – It was one of the most exciting personnel stories of the weekend in Zandvoort: Yuki Tsunoda returned completely unexpectedly to the cockpit of the Racing Bulls, where he replaced Liam Lawson, who was allowed to step in for Isack Hadjar at Red Bull.
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What started as a difficult cold start under the completely new 2026 regulations ended in a quite strong application for the future. With 13th place in the sprint, twelfth in qualifying, and eleventh in the race, the Japanese narrowly missed the points, but his driving performance was highly commendable.
Anyone who gets into a Formula 1 car in the middle of a season has a hard time anyway. But those who do so in the first year of a fundamentally new technical regulation face a mammoth task. The 2026 cars demand everything from the drivers – from changed downforce levels to highly complex energy management.
When asked what was the most difficult about the transition, Tsunoda found clear words: “The biggest challenge was actually almost everything. There was an incredible amount to learn: energy management, the buttons on the steering wheel, just everything. All processes work differently.”
Tsunoda, who according to his own statement had consciously traveled to the Netherlands with a defensive expectation, still had the enormous adaptation difficulties of the regular drivers at the winter tests in Bahrain well in mind, where they “saw more white smoke clouds than sun.”
His primary goal was therefore to avoid mistakes, keep the car on the track, and get a feel for it.
How drastic the difference to the previous generation is was illustrated by the Japanese with his first virtual attempts in the simulator: “When I first got into the simulator and braked, I was in the wall,” he explains laughing.
“The pedal pressure, these limit areas – it’s all different. And above all, the downforce is different.” The energy output of the new hybrid system also surprised him at first, as you suddenly feel strong deceleration from the system when discharging.
A steep learning curve and rediscovering the “fire”
All the more astonishing was the speed with which Tsunoda picked up pace. A decisive factor for this was the sprint on Saturday. The Japanese used this race distance almost as a high-speed lesson.
“In these 24 laps, I could really learn in every single lap,” he summarizes and emphasizes how extremely important these kilometers were for understanding the deployment procedures for the main race.
Despite the lack of routine – Tsunoda had “sat in the car only four times in eight months” – the Racing Bulls driver quickly reached his limit. Only at the sprint start did a small mistake occur when he collided with Lindblad in turn 1.
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A situation he openly and self-critically attributes to his Formula 1 past: “Honestly, I turned into the corner like last year. I simply forgot that we have less grip.” He was surprised how much the competition had to brake in the first corner under the new conditions.
But this small faux pas did not cloud the picture. On the contrary: In qualifying, he missed Q3 by just a tenth of a second. For Tsunoda, this session was an emotional return to his roots as a racer.
“This qualifying already felt much more like a real qualifying. I could trust the car more and really throw it into the corners,” he raves visibly relaxed. “Honestly, I missed this feeling – the chase for the last thousandths, the last tenths. It’s a huge amount of fun, absolutely huge fun.”
A tough race and the conclusion of those responsible
In the main race on Sunday, Tsunoda then showed a fighting performance that brought him up to eleventh place. He fought “until the last laps for eighth and ninth place” and proved that he quickly found clarity even in the difficult area of tire management, although the “characteristics of degradation were completely different” than in the past.
He takes the missing points professionally: “Of course, it’s a pity that it wasn’t enough for points in the end, but I take the result with me.” That he was able to deliver such a level directly after such a long absence from the cockpit surprised him the most: “Honestly, I think I was able to make faster progress than expected.”
He explicitly praises the excellent balance of the Racing Bulls car as well as the team, which supported him enormously and made it easy for him to go to the limit. According to Tsunoda, the officials were also “quite impressed with what I showed and very happy with the progress.”
The clear message to the paddock: “They should sign me”
Ultimately, this weekend was far more than just a sporting assignment as a substitute driver for Yuki Tsunoda. It was an audition on the biggest stage. Before the weekend, he had hinted that a year on the bench for 2027 was not an option and that he would, if necessary, also look towards IndyCar. But Zandvoort has rekindled his hunger for Formula 1.
“It is definitely a thousand times better to have gotten this chance than to have no opportunity at all and not be able to show what I can do under these regulations,” he sums up his return. Tsunoda has proven that he can adapt extremely quickly to radically changed conditions and has not lost the basic pace of a Formula 1 driver.
The Formula 1 drivers 2027
When asked if this weekend was a business card for the 2027 season, the Japanese answers with the enormous self-confidence of a driver who knows he delivered: “I know what I can do, and I think I was able to show most of the paddock what I am capable of.”
His final message to the team principals who have not yet finalized their driver line-ups for the coming year is therefore as simple as it is unmistakable: “It is now up to my management and the teams whether they want to sign me or not. But in my opinion, they should.”
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