Yuki Tsunoda reveals what he ‘didn’t know’ about Max Verstappen before he joined Red Bull

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Yuki Tsunoda outpaced Max Verstappen for the first time in a qualifying session ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix Sprint. Tsunoda led an all-Red Bull third row for the Saturday race.

The expectation is that Tsunoda will have to move over for Verstappen during the Sprint as his teammate pursues the world championship, but his performance on Friday evening came at the perfect time.

Red Bull are deciding whether Tsunoda will stay in F1, with Isack Hadjar’s promotion from Racing Bulls seen as a foregone conclusion. The only hope for the Japanese driver is dropping down to his former team.

An announcement could arrive early next week, meaning this is the last opportunity for Tsunoda and chief competitor Liam Lawson to impress. P5 is the former’s best result in any session all year.

Yuki Tsunoda says Max Verstappen is far more ‘open’ than he expected

In an interview on the Red Flags podcast, Tsunoda was asked what he’s learned from Verstappen after 20 races together at Red Bull. He says the world champion’s demeanour is ‘always the same’, no matter the result.

Before Tsunoda’s debut for the team at the Japanese GP, he said that he wouldn’t ask Verstappen for advice about the car because the Dutchman wouldn’t ‘tell the truth’.

As it turns out, Verstappen has been completely ‘open with advice’ in an attempt to raise the team’s overall ceiling. This has caught Tsunoda by surprise.

“His mentality throughout the week is something very strong,” said Tsunoda. “He’s very consistent throughout the year, with any situation.

“There are multiple times this year that he didn’t have a good car in the race weekend. We started FP1 and we were out of the top 10, but how he acts in the engineering room is actually the same.

“The amount of confidence he has is something I’m impressed [by], and also how he’s open with advice. I said something at Suzuka, and it’s probably usual for the media, but they twisted it.

“I said I’m not sure how he’s going to be open with advice, because teammates are the biggest rivals, right? I definitely didn’t expect how open he would be, and open to help to make the overall performance better as a team.

“That was something I was definitely impressed [by], and I didn’t know about before I came into this team.”

Jolyon Palmer is wrong about Yuki Tsunoda – he deserves an F1 seat

The timing of Tsunoda’s result is a surprise given that Red Bull are totally focused on Verstappen at this stage of the season. But it does give the team far more valuable data to help their lead driver.

Tsunoda entered the weekend 17th in the championship, only above two full-time drivers (Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto). But he won’t be judged on performance alone this weekend; he will also be expected to lend his full support to Verstappen’s title bid.

Jolyon Palmer has hinted that Tsunoda doesn’t deserve a place on the 2026 grid. But he’s already shown that he’s a solid driver in the midfield.

It may be that Laurent Mekies and Helmut Marko judge him on his past results for Racing Bulls, rather than looking solely at 2025.