Yuki Tsunoda has admitted that trying to copy Max Verstappen’s car set-up was his biggest mistake during a difficult 2025 season at Red Bull. The Japanese driver finished 17th in the drivers’ standings alongside Verstappen, scoring 30 points to his team-mate’s 385.
Tsunoda joined Red Bull for the 2025 campaign after Liam Lawson was demoted back to Racing Bulls just two races into the year, following Q1 eliminations and a blank return in the points. Verstappen went on to win eight grands prix in 2025, while Lando Norris took the drivers’ championship. Read Motorsport has previously covered his mental exhaustion at Red Bull during that stretch of races.
Tsunoda Admits Copying Verstappen Set-Up Was 2025 Mistake
Speaking about his struggles at Red Bull, Tsunoda pointed directly at his own approach to set-up work as the root cause of a season that never got going. Rather than trusting his own feel for the car, he leaned on Verstappen’s data far too often.
He explained that the team’s cars have long been associated with strong front-end grip, a trait he had previously enjoyed in earlier machinery. That familiarity, he says, pushed him towards a set-up path that ultimately worked against him at Red Bull.
“People often say Red Bull cars tend to have strong front-end grip. I personally love cars that turn aggressively, and in the past, I adapted my driving style to that kind of set-up,” Tsunoda said.
Official Interview Reveals Oversteer Set-Up Struggles at Red Bull
In detail shared with Motorsport.com interview, Tsunoda laid out exactly where his thinking went wrong across the season. He described repeatedly chasing Verstappen’s set-up sheet even when his own car was already fighting him.
“What I did most – and what I think now was the biggest mistake last year – was to try to replicate the set-up, what he’s doing; even knowing that sometimes, if I feel the car very oversteer, Max’s [set-up] in theory makes the car worse, more sensitive in the direction change, or makes the car slide more. I tend to choose the set-up, even though I’m already struggling with oversteer. It can happen sometimes the opposite way as well: even though I’m struggling with understeer, his car is more understeer. I try to replicate that,” Tsunoda said.
Team-mate Alex Albon, who spent time alongside Verstappen at Red Bull before Tsunoda’s arrival, has previously described just how unforgiving that set-up can feel from behind the wheel.
“To give people kind of maybe an explanation of what that might feel like, if you bump up the sensitivity [on a computer game] completely to the max and you move that mouse and it’s just darting across the screen everywhere, that’s kind of how it feels. It becomes so sharp that it makes you a little bit tense,” Albon said.
Performance Analysis and 2025 Red Bull Team-Mate Statistics
The numbers from 2025 show the scale of the gap Tsunoda faced. Across 27 qualifying sessions, he reached Q3 on eight occasions, was knocked out in Q2 nine times and fell in Q1 on ten occasions.
He outqualified Verstappen just once all season and was, on average, 0.6 seconds slower over a single lap. That deficit, combined with 30 points against Verstappen’s 385, made 2025 one of the toughest campaigns of Tsunoda’s career.
Lawson’s own return to Racing Bulls after two grands prix underlines how brutally difficult the Red Bull car has been to master this season. Neither driver placed alongside Verstappen managed to close the gap he opened at the front, while Norris claimed the title elsewhere with Verstappen taking eight race wins.
Tsunoda’s Future Options and Upcoming Timeline
Tsunoda’s own admission suggests a clearer approach to set-up work could help him close the gap to team-mates in future, rather than defaulting to Verstappen’s preferences regardless of how his own car feels beneath him. His comments come at a point when his broader position at Red Bull continues to draw attention.
Read Motorsport has reported separately on potential IndyCar links and on how Tsunoda weighs his options away from Formula 1. No decision on his next move has been confirmed, and any change to his racing plans would need to be verified through official team or driver statements before being treated as settled.
For now, the set-up admission stands as the clearest explanation yet from Tsunoda himself as to why his first season alongside Verstappen produced such a lopsided points return.
