Yuki Tsunoda will be centre of attention at his home Japanese Grand Prix this weekend after joining Max Verstappen at a Red Bull team desperate to reel in McLaren following their ominous start to the season.
Tsunoda was already a hero at Suzuka but his sudden promotion at the expense of Liam Lawson puts him under a whole new level of scrutiny as partner to the four-time world champion Verstappen.
Red Bull axed Lawson last week after the New Zealander’s disastrous start to his debut season, which saw him fail to score any points in the first two race weekends.
The 24-year-old Tsunoda steps up from sister team RB, with Lawson moving the other way to the team he drove for last season.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has told the Japanese driver to get as “close as possible” to Verstappen, said Tsunoda, whose highest finish at a race is fourth in 2021 at Abu Dhabi for RB, then called AlphaTauri. “In the end Red Bull Racing are focused on Max scoring a drivers’ championship,” Tsunoda told the BBC.
“He also promised me, in some situations, that if I’m able to be in front of Max that he wouldn’t necessarily ask me to swap positions and make Max win.”
Tsunoda said he will be happy if he can finish in the top 10 and score points on his Red Bull debut.
Now in his fifth Formula One season, he has shown pace this season.
He was 12th in the season-opener at Melbourne then picked up three points for coming sixth in the Shanghai Saturday sprint. He only finished out of the points in the China main race because of RB’s flawed two-stop pit strategy.
Red Bull’s cars will have a special white livery at Suzuka in tribute to their partner Honda’s maiden victory in Formula One, in Mexico in 1965.
Verstappen is second in the drivers’ standings but Horner needs his ruthless driver change to kick-start Red Bull’s constructors’ championship campaign after ceding early ground to McLaren.
Australia’s Oscar Piastri led teammate Lando Norris to a one-two in Shanghai, after the Briton took the chequered flag in Melbourne.
“Apart from Ferrari I don’t think there’s another team that has two drivers that push each other anywhere near as much,” said Norris, who leads the drivers’ championship on 44 points. For us, that’s a huge advantage.”
Norris is 12 ahead of Verstappen with Mercedes’ George Russell third on 35 and Piastri on 34.
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