“It was compromised”: Red Bull boss opens up on larger implications of Yuki Tsunoda’s Italian GP

Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda managed to make it to Q3 at the Italian GP but finished the race outside the points after an unfortunate incident with former teammate Liam Lawson. Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies came out after the race at Monza and opened up on the implications of Tsunoda's race.

Yuki Tsunoda has struggled in the second Red Bull seat, much like his predecessor, ever since making the move to the Milton Keynes-based team. Questions around Tsunoda's future at Red Bull for 2026 have already started circling the paddock.

However, it was seemingly a better result since the Japanese driver was able to make it into Q3 and was only 2 tenths slower than Max Verstappen in Q2. As Tsunoda started P10, he was stuck in the traffic, running in dirty air for the first stint of the race.

Later in the race, Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson came together as the Kiwi driver tried making a move on the Red Bull driver into the Turn 4 & 5 chicane. The same led to Tsunoda's RB21 taking some serious damage and ruining his race.

F1 Grand Prix of Italy - Source: Getty

While Max Verstappen was clearly the fastest driver at the Italian GP, the team was not able to get a clear read on Tsunoda's true race pace due to the damage. Speaking about the same, Laurent Mekies said,

“So it was compromised because we’ve seen the damage and we’ve seen the performance loss. So we knew the race was probably over at that moment.”

When questioned about how Red Bull would go on to evaluate Tsunoda's performance, Mekies added,

“The same as the new guys. Quali pace, race pace. That’s what we look at. It’s as simple as that. Today’s race for Yuki is difficult to read because of the traffic in the first stint, damage in the second stint.”

“I think, short-run pace, I think was a very good sample for Yuki. Long-run pace, it’s frustrating not to have clean race data,” added the Red Bull boss

Red Bull couldn't get the true data to evaluate Yuki Tsunoda's performance relative to his previous results, which would've provided a benchmark to see if the Japanese driver made any improvements at Monza.

---

Laurent Mekies confirms that Yuki Tsunoda will race with Red Bull until the end of the season

With Isack Hadjar flourishing at VCARB and taking his first podium at the Dutch GP, speculations around the French-Algerian driver replacing Yuki Tsunoda at Red Bull before the end of the current season started circling the paddock. However, Laurent Mekies came out ahead of the Italian GP and confirmed that Tsunoda and Hadjar would not be swapping seats. He said,

“We do not plan to change during the season. Yuki has been making a good step in the last three races, we want more, but he's doing a good job. First time in the points after seven races, best Qualifying with the team at Spa, he's on a positive trend.” (Via F1)

Isack Hadjar currently has more points than Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda combined tally in the F1 Drivers' standings.