Tsunoda: Red Bull and Verstappen ‘not giving up’ on F1 2025 title battle
Max Verstappen has earned back-to-back wins in Formula 1.
Yuki Tsunoda has said he is sure Red Bull is “not giving up with this season”, especially looking to mount a title challenge with Max Verstappen.
Verstappen has won back-to-back races in dominant fashion in Italy and Azerbaijan, reducing the gap to the top of the standings by 35 points in a short timeframe.
Tsunoda: Red Bull ‘not giving up with this season’
The four-time World Champion still sits a distant 69 points behind Oscar Piastri at the top of the standings, but Red Bull has gained ground in recent races, owed in part to a successful floor upgrade introduced in Monza earlier in September.
While Verstappen has stood on the top step in the last two races, Tsunoda’s form has improved too, taking a sixth place finish in Baku last time out – representing his best finish as a Red Bull Racing driver so far.
With most of the grid alread placing its main focus on the 2026 challengers that will arrive with massive regulation changes in Formula 1, the Japanese driver believes Red Bull will be in a strong position in upcoming races – and offered to lend his support to his teammate in what could yet become a late challenge for another Drivers’ title.
“I think teams are pushing a lot in terms of this, upgrades and everything, and trying to secure some milliseconds on every corner, which is very important,” Tsunoda said.
The current state of play in the F1 2025 season
👉 The updated F1 points standings after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix
👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates
“I think definitely, we are more confident in the coming races to perform better, so I’m sure we’re not giving up with this season, especially securing the Drivers’ Championship for Max, so I’ll try to extract performance as much as possible from the car that I have, and also at the same time for some races, if I can support him, that would be [good].”
Asked directly about looking to challenge for the Drivers’ title, Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies urged more caution on that front, looking to keep focus by taking events one round at a time.
“You know the confidence goes up,” he said in response to Verstappen taking a second win in a row.
“So also, you can take a bit more risk every race and and experiment a bit more and unlock more lap time, and whether that has an effect on what McLaren does, honestly, I don’t know, [it’s] probably none of our business.
“So, we concentrate on ourselves, really. That’s what we want to see.
“We want to see the car making progress in some areas and, if it works, it will be good against McLaren, it will be good against Mercedes and Ferrari.”
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