Yuki Tsunoda has finally been promoted to the main Red Bull team after spending four years at their junior team. This change happened because Liam Lawson, who started the 2025 season in the Red Bull seat, struggled in his first two races. He couldn’t get comfortable with the car and didn’t perform as the team had hoped, so Red Bull decided to swap him with Tsunoda, who has more experience.

Many fans were surprised that Tsunoda wasn’t chosen for the main team before the season started. Now, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has explained a bit more about why. He said that Tsunoda used to be seen as a driver who made too many mistakes and wasn’t always consistent.

“For a long time, Yuki had the image of not performing consistently and making silly mistakes here and there,” Marko told Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung.

One moment that really hurt his chances was a crash with his teammate Pierre Gasly at the 2022 British Grand Prix. Debris from that crash ended up damaging Max Verstappen’s car and ruined his race.

“Tsunoda once drove into Pierre Gasly’s car there, and parts of the cars on the track subsequently damaged the underbody of Verstappen’s car, which caused him to lose the race,” Marko explained.

According to Marko, Red Bull’s top designer at the time, Adrian Newey, was very angry about the crash and saw Tsunoda as a risk after that. “Adrian Newey was furious at the time. From then on, Yuki was a red flag to him,” Marko said.

He also hinted that Newey might have been one of the reasons Tsunoda didn’t get promoted sooner, saying that decisions inside the team can sometimes be affected by single incidents like that.

But now that Newey has left Red Bull and joined Aston Martin, the team has given Tsunoda a chance to prove himself. “Yuki has worked hard on himself,” Marko added, suggesting that the Japanese driver had improved both his driving and his consistency.

However, Newey’s wife, Amanda, disagreed with the idea that her husband blocked Tsunoda’s promotion. She responded online by saying, “That doesn’t make sense,” and explained that Newey wasn’t involved in team decisions anymore because he was on garden leave (a break from work before officially leaving the job). She even added an eye-roll emoji to show she thought the claim was silly.

Newey, who had been with Red Bull since 2006, officially said he would leave in early 2024. While he was still seen at a few races early that year, he had mostly stepped away from F1 to focus on a special road car project. Now, with Newey gone and Tsunoda showing clear improvement, the Japanese driver finally has his shot to shine in a top team.