Yuki Tsunoda admits to feeling ‘a lot of pressure’ amid Red Bull slump

Yuki Tsunoda has admitted he feels “a lot of pressure” amid his ongoing F1 form slump with Red Bull.

The Japanese F1 driver endured another tough weekend on his 100th grand prix appearance at the Canadian Grand Prix as he could only recover to 12th after a 10-place penalty for a red flag infringement left him at the back of the grid.

It marked the third consecutive race in which Tsunoda has failed to score points in the second Red Bull, while teammate Max Verstappen finished second in Montreal.

“[Saturday] was a tough day with the 10-place nonsense penalty,” Tsunoda said. “[I] lost a lot of time in FP3, especially with the new upgrades when you want to especially learn about the car.

“Still with our team, you want to be as high as possible, but I enjoy this challenge I guess. [In] these moments I’m having a lot of pressure, sometimes I’m not enjoying them that much but it’s part of the time that [is] an opportunity to improve myself and prove myself more.”

Asked if P12 was the maximum he could achieve given the penalty, Tsunoda replied: “Yeah, pretty much, that’s it. The pace was okay, not amazing but still not too bad. Other than that, pretty much that’s it really.

“At least [a] positive is the car performance now, and the pace in the car felt a bit more normal or better than last previous races, so at least there’s a bit of motivation there.”

Red Bull continue to back Tsunoda 

Despite Tsunoda’s miserable form and struggles to turn around his fortunes, Red Bull continue to stand by their driver.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has continued to insist that Tsunoda will be given “time and support” to increase his confidence in the RB21.

Red Bull intend to keep Tsunoda in the seat for the rest of the 2025 season but his ongoing struggles are doing little to quell speculation surrounding his future.

Tsunoda was only drafted in to Red Bull from sister squad Racing Bulls after the opening two races of the season in a seat swap with Liam Lawson, who had a nightmare start to the campaign.

Tsunoda’s future has been brought more into the spotlight given Isack Hadjar’s impressive start to his rookie F1 season with Racing Bulls.