Honda reportedly playing a financial role in Red Bull keeping Yuki Tsunoda at the senior team

Yuki Tsunoda has been under the wings of Honda since 2016, and the Japanese giant's connection with Red Bull played a key role in his promotion to Milton Keynes during the 2025 season. Moreover, according to reports, Honda had given the Austrian giant a concession in the price of F1 engines to aid Tsunoda's move earlier in the season.

With Honda and Red Bull tying up in 2019, Tsunoda raced under both the manufacturer's badges in the junior categories. The young racer was then promoted to F1 with the Faenza-based squad to assess his capabilities in the racing realm.

While his rookie year was marked with various excursions, Tsunoda was able to retain his seat and soon turned into the team leader as Pierre Gasly headed out to Alpine in 2023. Since then, the 25-year-old easily outscored his teammates, and despite being initially snubbed by Liam Lawson for the seat at the senior team, this decision was reversed after just two rounds of the 2025 season.

This decision came ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, Tsunoda and Honda's home race. With the option of promoting its graduate to the top squad, according to ESPN, the Japanese manufacturer bulged in and gave the Austrian giant a discount on its F1 engines as part of the deal.

Therefore, this deal ensured that the 25-year-old will see out the 2025 season with the Milton Keynes-based squad.

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Yuki Tsunoda aims to bounce back stronger after the summer break amid a torrid run with Red Bull

Yuki Tsunoda at the 2025 F1 Grand Prix of Hungary race weekend - Source: Getty

While Yuki Tsunoda has been the better of the two drivers in comparison to his predecessor, Lawson, his points-scoring streak came to an end earlier in the year. He last scored points at the Emilia Romagna GP, where the 25-year-old claimed a 10th-place result after a dismal qualifying outing a day earlier.

Though he hasn't been able to score points, Tsunoda has reduced his performance delta to benchmark Max Verstappen. Reflecting on coming back in the second half of the season, he said (via F1):

"Looking back on the season so far, I can feel pretty positive, we've made progress, especially since the new floor upgrades were brought to Spa. The gap with Max continues to close, it may not feel like we are getting there but on paper we are only one tenth off his pace. I'm not sure many other drivers could get as close to him."

"I am heading straight to the factory tomorrow to go into the [simulator]. We need to investigate where we went wrong and put in some hard work over the summer break so that we don't start the next half of the season how we finished this one. It's frustrating but we will stay positive and bounce back stronger."

Yuki Tsunoda has amassed 10 points in the 2025 season so far, with three of them coming from his time at Racing Bulls.