Red Bull F1 star opens up on ‘not enjoying life' after team switch

Lawson, Tsunoda, Hadjar, socials — Photo: © IMAGO

Yuki Tsunoda

Red Bull F1 star opens up on ‘not enjoying life' after team switch

It seemed like a rough year

Chris Deeley Editor

Experienced sports writer covering F1 and other motorsports since 2023

Thursday 17 September 2026 08:14

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Popular F1 star Yuki Tsunoda has admitted that 2025 was the hardest season of his career, after his promotion to Red Bull's senior team just two races into the year.

The Japanese star replaced Liam Lawson for the final 22 races, but struggled alongside Max Verstappen as team leadership continued to disintegrate, finishing below both Racing Bulls drivers in the championship standings, all the way down in 17th.

Speaking on the Beyond the Grid podcast this week, Tsunoda admitted he realised 'I'm not really enjoying my life' as the season dragged on, saying that he didn't feel able to mentally reset between races.

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He lost his seat at the end of last season, instead moving into a reserve role with the team for 2026 - which has seen him return to the grid in recent weeks as a Racing Bulls driver, replacing Lawson who himself has been temporarily promoted to Red Bull as an injury replacement for Isack Hadjar.

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Tsunoda reflects on 2025 Red Bull struggles

Asked how his annus horribilis had been, he said: “Definitely, 2025 was the toughest year in my career, and I learned heaps of things.

“I'm the kind of person, as soon as I had good food or whatever, I was able to reset myself between the race weeks. But I started to really struggle, towards the second half of the season especially; somehow when I came back to my house, I felt very exhausted.

“Normally I'm able to reset myself, get back this energy after I had something that I really like, if I do something that I really like. But I didn't feel that energy, [it] never came back, and the races just kept going and going, going, going.

“I had so much up and down, and at some point I just recognised myself that I'm not really enjoying my life, I would say, like I'm not really enjoying the situation, not really enjoying driving Formula 1 probably as much as I was doing the first three years."

Tsunoda: More opportunity for introspection than previous years

“So," he continued, "it was a very tough time, and outside of racing, try to solve this issue, right? What can I do to help that? And if I look back, is there something else other than eating food or this stuff? What makes me happy?

"And normally it's friends, but mostly friends in Japan and... Okay, I really recognised, actually I'm away from Japan. That I really never thought about since probably my first year in F3.

“Okay, this is tough, something that I have to resolve myself. I got help quite a lot with psychology, trainer and a lot of things, but the race [schedule] was pretty busy in the second half, so it was a pretty tough time. But at the same time, the year gave me the opportunity to look myself through a lot more than any other years.”

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F1 Red Bull Yuki Tsunoda