Marko gives Tsunoda two clear reasons for continued Red Bull snub

As Yuki Tsunoda spoke out about Red Bull continuing to overlook him, Helmut Marko says the Japanese racer lacks the required “continuity” and “stability”. 

Speculation continues to swirl regarding the second Red Bull seat, with the F1 2024 struggles of Sergio Perez creating uncertainty over whether he will continue alongside Max Verstappen into next season. If he does not, Tsunoda is struggling to find reasons why he would not be in the conversation for a promotion.

Helmut Marko explains Yuki Tsunoda Red Bull snubs

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

But, despite enjoying arguably his best season yet in F1 2024 since debuting with Red Bull’s second team in 2021, Tsunoda has seldom been mentioned as a genuine contender to step up to Red Bull, a frustration which the Japanese racer made clear ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix amid continued talk regarding Perez.

Asked by the media, including PlanetF1.com, if he really sees himself in the mix to replace Perez, Tsunoda replied: “I don’t know. Please could you interview them and find out?

“To be honest, I don’t know. Even whatever they say in the interview, even they say, ‘Yuki is in the mix’, I don’t know if that’s the truth or not to be honest.

“So, yeah, I hope I’m in that mix, and if not, I don’t know what I should do more than this, to be honest.

“I’ll just keep pushing and things I can control. And those things, the Red Bull seat, they decide everything. I’m sure if I’m in the seat, I can fight for a higher Constructors’ Championship [position] and what they want.

“But, other things, politics things. They decide what they want.

“Historically looking back, it’s pretty natural that the driver, for example, in our team, if one driver outperforms the other driver like this consistently the last few years, you get promoted. It’s kind of a natural thing.

“Maybe something changed. The dynamics maybe changed, Red Bull itself changed after Mr. Mateschitz passed away.

“I mean, one of the drivers has got a Drivers’ Championship, and this is a team that has had success since quite a long time, so what they’re doing is I guess not a bad thing, but it doesn’t really make sense for me that I didn’t really be in the mix much so far.

“I don’t know much. For myself at least, I can’t find much reasons why they’re not really, so far, talking about me heavily.”

However, Red Bull senior advisor and driver programme boss Helmut Marko has shed some light on why they are reluctant to promote Tsunoda, their grounds being concerns over the 24-year-old’s “continuity and stability”.

“He has now delivered two very good races in Brazil and Las Vegas. Unfortunately, he made two stupid mistakes in Brazil before that,” Marko told Kleine Zeitung.

“Yuki has the speed, but he lacks continuity and stability.

“But when it works for him, it works very well.”

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Tsunoda has two more races to put his best foot forward and convince Red Bull ahead of their F1 2025 line-up decisions.

“There will be a meeting on Monday after Abu Dhabi and that’s when the decisions will be made,” Marko confirmed.

Red Bull are battling to keep their hopes of retaining the Constructors’ title in-tact this weekend at the Qatar Grand Prix, their deficit to leaders McLaren standing at 53 points.

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