Alex Albon is helping Yuki Tsunoda ‘a lot’ after he ‘realised’ something important about Red Bull

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Yuki Tsunoda is battling to save his Red Bull seat, and potentially his Formula 1 career. Alex Albon, one of Max Verstappen’s former teammates, is offering him some support.

Tsunoda is out of contract at the end of the season, and his failure to end the second-driver crisis at Red Bull has put him very much at risk. Despite a 2025-best sixth place in Azerbaijan, he remains 17th in the championship – 14 places below his teammate.

It may be too late to keep his current drive. The consensus is that Isack Hadjar will join Red Bull after an outstanding rookie season at Racing Bulls.

But Tsunoda could be battling Liam Lawson for a seat at the sister team. Ironically, he replaced the New Zealander after just two rounds.

Alex Albon understands why he and Yuki Tsunoda have struggled at Red Bull

Albon can ’empathise’ with Tsunoda after his own struggles at Milton Keynes. While this is the Japanese driver’s fifth F1 season, Albon stepped up to Red Bull midway through his rookie campaign.

The replacement for Pierre Gasly, Albon was also unconvincing alongside Verstappen. He was given 18 months, but dropped off the grid altogether at the end of 2020.

Now a successful driver at Williams, Albon has had ‘a lot’ of conversations with Tsunoda, whom he previously coached. He’s realised why Verstappen’s teammates have found it so difficult.

In addition to being up against arguably the greatest driver of all time, they find themselves driving a tricky car with little understanding of how to extract performance.

“I empathise with it,” he told the BBC’s ‘Chequered Flag Extra’ podcast. “I see it quite clearly. The time that I was at Red Bull, I joined six months into my Formula 1 career.

“I just realised, in hindsight, I was in a predicament when I joined because I had a car that I wasn’t comfortable with, and I didn’t have the experience to get myself out of it.

“I struggled with it, but my experience level and my maturity as a human being wasn’t at a point to understand how to get myself out of that situation.

“I see it now, and I understand. I speak with Yuki a lot, try to help him in any way I can. We have a great relationship and I really love Yuki.

“It’s hard. I think you’ve got on the other side of the garage arguably the best driver that’s driven a Formula 1 car. That’s a big statement I know, but I do really mean that.

“He can drive a car that’s not comfortable to drive, and he can hide a lot of problems.”

The latest on Yuki Tsunoda’s F1 future at Red Bull as Laurent Mekies and Helmut Marko disagree

Up to this point, the expectation has been that Arvid Lindblad would step up from Formula 2 to join Racing Bulls next year. But confidence in that outcome is starting to waver.

Some at Red Bull are wary of rushing Lindblad, which means he could stay in the series for another year. Theoretically, this could allow Lawson and Tsunoda to reunite at Racing Bulls.

Is another year at Red Bull completely impossible? Laurent Mekies is open to keeping Tsunoda, should he sustain the level he showed last weekend.

But Helmut Marko is already set on the idea of promoting Hadjar. The end result could be a telling indication of the power dynamics at Red Bull post-Christian Horner.