Jacques Villeneuve delivers brutal ‘not good enough’ Yuki Tsunoda verdict amid Red Bull uncertainty

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Red Bull Racing driver Yuki Tsunoda is in a very difficult position right now.

The Dutch Grand Prix, after a four-week summer break, was supposed to be the start of Yuki Tsunoda’s resurgence at Red Bull.

Tsunoda was closer than ever before to Max Verstappen in qualifying at the Hungarian Grand Prix, but it was Red Bull’s worst race of the season, and he still went out in Q1 and failed to come close to scoring a point.

The Japanese driver is on a run of seven Grand Prix weekends without scoring a point heading to Zandvoort, which simply isn’t good enough for Laurent Mekies’ team.

Mekies failed to guarantee Tsunoda’s future earlier in the weekend in the Netherlands, and the goals he needed to achieve to retain his position on the grid were vague, to say the least.

Jacques Villeneuve and Bernie Collins have been speaking about Tsunoda’s ability and his future, and the 1997 F1 world champion was brutal in his assessment of his position at Red Bull.

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Jacques Villeneuve says Red Bull know Yuki Tsunoda is ‘not good enough’ for the team

In the build-up to the Dutch Grand Prix, Collins and Villeneuve were discussing on Sky Sports F1 (31/8 12:55 pm) if Tsunoda has a chance of retaining his seat.

Collins said: “The team will be looking at it really, really closely. They’ll be looking at where he’s losing lap-on-lap to Max through qualifying, and small differences in qualifying make a big difference in grid position this year, and that’s what Yuki is coming up against.

“He needs to prove to the team that he’s good enough and they see good enough progression, event-on-event, lap-on-lap to prove to them that he’s going to make progress.

“If you don’t see any sort of progress, then that’s where it becomes very difficult to hold onto a driver, even if the results haven’t been good enough.

“But, if he can show that it’s in there somewhere, then maybe, there’s hope.”

Villeneuve replied: “I think they already know what he is, what he’s worth. They have had him for five years now with the Red Bull juniors and the main team.

“They know he’s not good enough; they know he’s reached his peak. He’s reached his peak!

“He’s been peaking, and he’s only ever gotten there because of Honda!

“When you’re a team like Red Bull, when you’re a team like McLaren, you want two drivers that can fight.

“There isn’t an obvious answer [replacement], that’s the problem, but they know he’s not good enough, so what do you do? You keep a driver that will drive around, maybe get some points, but will not help you develop the car, will not push the team.

“Or, you take a gamble and go with someone else.”

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Who could Red Bull replace Yuki Tsunoda with at the end of the season?

Tsunoda’s contract expires at the end of the campaign, theoretically giving him 10 race weekends to prove to Red Bull that he deserves an extension.

Red Bull will be relieved that Verstappen has confirmed he will stay with the team for the 2026 campaign; otherwise, Mekies and Helmut Marko would be looking for two new drivers at short notice.

Isack Hadjar has emerged as Red Bull’s frontrunner to replace Tsunoda, despite only having a handful of Grand Prix starts to his name.

The French rookie produced the best lap of his career to start fourth at Zandvoort.

It’s the sort of performance that Tsunoda needs to produce very soon to convince Red Bull he has the underlying potential to contribute to Red Bull’s cause in a more docile car.