Red Bull could now change their minds about Yuki Tsunoda’s future after Christian Horner sacking

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Yuki Tsunoda desperately needs to improve when the Formula 1 season resumes at the Dutch Grand Prix this weekend. His recent form has put his entire career at risk.

Tsunoda is out of contract at the end of the season, and he certainly hasn’t made a convincing case for an extension. The Japanese driver hasn’t scored points in the last seven races, a period where teammate Max Verstappen has picked up 63.

Tsunoda entered the summer break 18th in the championship, which means he’s on course for the worst showing from a Red Bull driver Christian Klien in 2006. And it should be noted as well that he scored three of his 10 points at Racing Bulls before replacing Liam Lawson.

Lawson is unlikely to return to Red Bull but his strong results – three points finishes in four Grands Prix – have symbolically heightened the pressure on Tsunoda. Isack Hadjar has arguably been F1’s best rookie this year, which puts him in the frame.

Up to this point, F2 driver Arvid Lindblad has been expected to join Racing Bulls, which means there are four drivers going for three seats (Max Verstappen is locked in).

Lawrence Barretto says Red Bull could retain their two driver line-ups

Shortly before the summer break, the BBC’s Andrew Benson reported that Tsunoda had an ‘almost zero percent chance’ of staying in F1 next year. That indicated that the team had their minds all but made up.

But then came the seismic sacking of Christian Horner. His replacement, Laurent Mekies, worked with Tsunoda at the sister team.

F1TV journalist Lawrence Barretto, speaking on a YouTube livestream, believes that Mekies will judge Tsunoda on talent rather than results. As such, he can envisage him staying for another year.

In fact, he sees Red Bull going into 2026 with the same four-driver roster, which would lead to Lindblad staying in F2. The 18-year-old is currently seventh in the championship.

“I think this is the hardest time, as long as I’ve been covering Formula 1, to understand what Red Bull are going to do,” he said. “We’ve had this change in management in Laurent Mekies, but we’ve also had greater control and influence from the Austrian part of the business, so we don’t know yet how they want to go about their driver selection.

• READ MORE: Red Bull still haven’t given Yuki Tsunoda ‘parity’ with Max Verstappen despite parts upgrade

“Laurent gets on well with Yuki, and that might suggest that Yuki will get a bit longer in the car – maybe into next year – because he believes in him. Maybe he’ll work better under Laurent, but then maybe Laurent will have seen something in the young drivers and promote them upwards!

“The one thing we can be certain of is that Laurent will make his decision based on driver talent, not so much on results. He won’t look at Yuki’s results at Red Bull and think, ‘Oh well, this kid’s got nothing’. He’ll understand that he’s still got talent.

“The problem for him is, if they do bring Lindblad up next season, they’ve got to drop one driver, and at the moment it’s not immediately clear which one that is. Liam has scored in the last couple of races, Hadjar has been a standout rookie and Laurent, as I understand it, will really back Yuki’s talent.

“It’s really tricky. It feels like they’re moving towards more stability. For that reason, I can see them staying as they are actually and leaving Yuki at Red Bull, Liam alongside Hadjar at Racing Bulls, and maybe giving Lindblad another year in F2, presuming he doesn’t win the championship.”

Isack Hadjar’s surprising stance on joining Red Bull for 2026

Tsunoda may have been helped by Hadjar’s public misgivings about joining Red Bull so early in his career. Normally, a driver would jump at the chance to join a top team, but he has seen several highly-rated stars struggle in a car that’s notoriously difficult to handle.

Even behind the scenes, Hadjar is ‘highly resistant’ to a Red Bull move. It’s unclear whether or not that will put off senior management should they view him as a ready-made Tsunoda replacement.

Perhaps the Frenchman is privately hoping Verstappen leaves Red Bull ahead of the 2027 season. The almost impossible benchmark set by the four-time world champion would then be removed, though Mekies’ squad could feasibly become midfielders in his absence.