The 2025 Formula 1 season was meant to be a moment of ascension for Yuki Tsunoda. After years of proving his raw pace and fiery determination in the Red Bull feeder teams, the young Japanese driver finally earned the call-up to the sport’s most demanding environment: the senior Red Bull Racing team. It was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream and the opportunity to cement himself as Max Verstappen’s long-term partner, standing at the apex of motorsport.

Instead, the season has become a relentless, unforgiving trial. It is a stark reminder that F1 is not built on potential or loyalty, but on cold, hard, measurable results. In the ruthless arena of the top-tier team, Tsunoda’s performance has faltered, leading to a dangerous crisis point that now sees his entire career hanging by the finest of threads. His situation has become the most dramatic and high-stakes story of the off-season, and the latest announcement from a rival team has delivered a blow so significant it may have sealed his fate.

The Impossible Gap: Performance Under the Microscope

Tsunoda’s promotion to the main team, following the opening rounds of the 2025 season, was predicated on the promise of consistency and the explosive speed he had shown previously. But standing alongside a generational talent like Max Verstappen, inconsistency is not tolerated, and the raw statistics paint a devastating picture.

With the season nearing its dramatic close, the numbers are impossible for Red Bull to ignore and even harder for Tsunoda to defend. Verstappen has accumulated a staggering 321 points, carrying the vast majority of the team’s championship effort. In painful contrast, Tsunoda has only managed a meager 25 points. This chasm in contribution is glaring, especially in a season where Red Bull is locked in a desperate, tooth-and-nail fight for second place in the Constructors’ Championship against resurgent rivals Ferrari and Mercedes.

In a performance-driven ecosystem, a difference of nearly 300 points between two drivers in equal machinery is not merely a disappointment—it is a glaring liability. Red Bull, a team that has built its entire legacy on the pursuit of perfection and absolute dominance, cannot afford to carry a driver who consistently fails to contribute to the financial and strategic targets defined by the championship table. As the pressure mounts and tens of millions of dollars in prize money hang in the balance, Tsunoda’s lack of pace has made him the inevitable scapegoat in Red Bull’s upcoming reshuffle.

The Internal War and the Rising Rival

Behind the scenes at Red Bull, the pressure cooker has intensified into an internal civil war over Tsunoda’s future. The management structure is reportedly split, pitting the old guard against the new vision.

On one side stands the formidable and famously ruthless Dr. Helmut Marko, the architect of Red Bull’s junior programme. Marko is a staunch advocate for the brand’s philosophy of continuous, cold-blooded renewal, believing the time has come for “fresh blood.” His gaze is fixed squarely on 20-year-old French talent Isack Hadjar, who is currently shining brightly at the sister team, Racing Bulls. Hadjar has been nothing short of impressive, turning heads with his calm driving, remarkable adaptability, and ability to consistently secure strong points finishes in a car far inferior to the Red Bull RB21. For Marko, Hadjar represents the logical, plug-and-play successor.

On the other side is the new Team Principal, Laurent Mekies, who reportedly still holds faith in Tsunoda’s potential. Mekies has championed the Japanese driver, even ensuring that Tsunoda has received equal machinery to Verstappen—a guarantee that was not always a given under previous regimes. However, even Mekies’ powerful support might not be enough to save Tsunoda if the results do not improve immediately. In Formula 1, sentimentality rarely trumps the data, and the data is screaming for change.

The truth is that the Red Bull junior pipeline is once again overflowing. With talents like Hadjar, Liam Lawson, and the highly-rated 17-year-old Arvid Lindblad clamoring for seats, the cold, brutal reality is that someone must be dropped to make room for the next generation.

The Dagger to the Heart: Aston Martin’s Betrayal

For months, the paddock whispers offered a comforting lifeline for Tsunoda: Aston Martin. The connection made perfect, strategic sense. Aston Martin is set to partner with Honda, Tsunoda’s primary backer, beginning in the 2026 season. The pairing of a Japanese driver, backed by a Japanese manufacturer, joining a British team with massive ambitions felt like a natural fit—a perfect escape route from Red Bull’s unforgiving rotation policy. Tsunoda’s fiery spirit and deep-seated connection with Honda were seen as valuable assets that would make him integral to the new project.

That hope, however, was violently extinguished this week.

Aston Martin delivered a shattering announcement, confirming that the young American driver Jack Crawford will be promoted to the team’s third driver role for 2026. This promotion is far more than a symbolic gesture; it is a clear strategic move that effectively slams the door shut on Tsunoda’s entry into the Aston Martin programme. Crawford, also 20 years old, has been a major figure behind the scenes, working extensively in the team’s simulator and helping to develop the crucial AMR26, the car designed under the technical guidance of F1 legend Adrian Newey. By promoting Crawford, Aston Martin is clearly signaling a commitment to youth and continuity, investing internally rather than taking a chance on an external recruit whose future is currently in doubt.

For Tsunoda, this decision is nothing less than a dagger to the heart of his backup plan. With Felipe Drugovich leaving the reserve seat to pursue Formula E, that position was Cunoda’s only realistic escape route. Now, he is truly cornered, his options evaporated, with his future solely dependent on the whims of Red Bull’s management.

The Four-Race Ultimatum

Tsunoda’s fate now rests on the next few races: Brazil, Las Vegas, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi. Red Bull has tactically postponed any official announcement about their 2026 driver lineup until the very end of the season. Publicly, the team claims the delay is to focus on the title fight. Privately, insiders believe the leadership is attempting to avoid demotivating either Tsunoda or Liam Lawson, both of whom are still vital in the final rounds as Red Bull strives to secure those crucial constructors’ championship points.

The internal structure of the Red Bull empire complicates the matter further. At Racing Bulls, where Hadjar currently competes, an agreement is already in place to promote 17-year-old Arvid Lindblad to a full-time F1 seat in 2026. This means the pool of remaining available seats has shrunk to just one, and both Tsunoda and Lawson are locked in a terrifying battle for it. Whoever loses this final showdown is highly likely to find themselves completely out of Formula 1 by the next year.

The stakes could not be higher. Tsunoda must, in these final four opportunities, deliver the kind of stand-out, point-scoring performances that remind Red Bull of the fighter they originally signed. A few unexpected points finishes, a brilliant qualifying session, or a race that perfectly balances aggression and consistency might just be enough to convince the management to keep him—perhaps by deploying him back to the newly-named Racing Balls team to help balance the youth of Lindblad.

But if he fails to deliver, the outcome is inevitable. Red Bull is a business, and that business dictates that the driver carrying nearly all the team’s weight is Verstappen. The driver contributing the least is Tsunoda. He must prove that his potential still burns brightly enough to warrant a place in the sport.

Yuki Tsunoda’s future currently hangs by a thread defined not by politics or rumour, but by the cold, unforgiving metric of pure performance. The final four races of 2025 are not just part of a season; they are his final, desperate audition to remain in the brutal talent machine of Formula 1. If he can rise to the challenge, redemption is still possible. If not, the promising young star will become the latest, tragic casualty whose potential faded too soon.