As the season kicked off with the Bahrain GP last Saturday for 2024, the mid-field drama took on the hues of the Visa Cash App RB team’s red and blue.
With Daniel Ricciardo making his full season comeback with the team this season following a year on the bench with Redbull, all eyes are on him. The second seat in Redbull is up for grabs in 2025 as Sergio Perez’s contract expires. Daniel Ricciardo is the likely driver to replace him for the next season and Yuki Tsunoda, his teammate, is not happy with the way the paddock politics is playing out.
Yuki has been driving for the RB team (erstwhile AlphaTauri) since 2019. While he has had zero podium finishes in his short career with Formula 1, Redbull clearly sees race-winning potential in him. His sponsor, Honda, who is a big sponsor for the RB team as well, insists on the Japanese driver as well and it almost guarantees his seat in the team.
But nobdy gets into Formula 1 to drive for AlphaTauri. With his sights set on the Redbull team and Checo’s contract expiring next season, Yuki is very much set on outperforming his teammate. This situation has been made complicated by that teammate being Daniel Ricciardo — 32 podium finishes in his career.
Redbull clearly prefers Danny Ric for the second seat in the team and Yuki is determined to position himself as the better choice between the two. This underlying tension became apparent as RB team asked Tsunoda to let his teammate pass on lap 52 of 57 as he was chasing down Magnussen in a Haas for P12.
- Danny Ric was on new soft tyres while Yuki was on hard ones.
- Danny Ric had better pace throughout the race compared to Yuki.
- Danny Ric claimed this strategy was discussed previously and Yuki was most definitely part of these discussions.
While this was a sound strategy from the team, it was favoring one driver over the other citing slight margin in performance. Yuki, for his part, was not happy about the driver swap and made his feelings clear on the team radio. He eventually let Ricciardo pass in lap 23 while under blue flag, being lapped by race leader Max Verstappen. Under the circumstances, Ricciardo was unable to improve his position in the race and Yuki was on the team radio saying, “He is not fast at all” as the confused and enraged Japanese driver tried to make sense of the situation.
Yuki, unfortunately, failed to limit his displeasure to the team radio and went on to dive-bomb his teammate on the cooldown lap after the race, almost tapping Ricciardo’s car. In what was about to go down as a viral moment in F1 history, Ricciardo kept his cool and avoided contact with Tsunoda but called him a “f**king helmet”.
In the post-race interview, he refrained from giving voice to his concerns but did mention that these strategies were discussed in meetings and Yuki was obviously present for all of them, there’s nothing going on behind his back. He further called the behavior of the 23-year-old Japanese driver immature and fueled the controversy further.
While this reflects poorly on Yuki, it is undeniable who the RB team is prioritizing and as the politics in the paddock fire up, it would be wise to know that the fiery-tempered and fiercely competitive Yuki Tsunoda will put up a fight against Daniel Ricciardo. If this in-fighting leads Yuki farther away from the coveted Redbull second seat, that still remains to be seen.
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