Yuki Tsunoda canceled his holidays in Japan to have overtime on the Milton Keynes simulator after the Hungarian GP

The Formula 1 season of Yuki Tsunoda in 2025 was one of the ups and downs, but the Japanese driver remains determined to turn around. After a series of painful outings, Tsunoda canceled his holidays and spent long hours at the Red Bull simulator in Milton Keynes who helped reset his approach.

Tsunoda joined Red Bull Racing after only two laps this season, going from Racing Bulls to replace Liam Lawson. He started with Promise, marking six points in his first four races, but what followed was seven races without a single TOP-10. This left him at the lower half of the classification.

The low point arrived in Hungary, where Tsunoda finished 17th and his teammate Max Verstappen ninth in a delicate afternoon for the RB21. This weekend marked a turning point. Instead of returning to Japan for the summer holidays, Tsunoda informed Laurent Mekies that he would stay in the United Kingdom and will spend his time at work in the simulator.

Talk to The race In Baku, Mekies revealed how this change impressed him:

“He listens and that is good. I am very happy for him. He works very hard. He never fell by working hard. After the difficult and difficult period of Budapest, he came directly to the simulator instead of going on vacation. Every weekend when he does not flow, he works somewhere with his engineers or on his driving. I am very happy for him that he does not make progress.”

Progress has been clear after the break. Yuki Tsunoda returned to the Dutch Grand Prix and obtained points for the first time in eight races with ninth place. He credited SIM’s overtime to help him identify what was missing.

“Something that I changed on the car seems to work very well, and obviously, there is also a fine setting with my driving that I worked hard enough to improve. I wanted to find the reason why I was so late, and I tried several simulation sessions. Then, I found something, and when I applied it on this track, it seems to work very well,” he added via the race.

The time for its improvement has also aligned the technical upgrades of Red Bull. A new floor introduced into Monza improved the air flow under the car, while the edges used increased the support force and reduced the trail of the wings.

In Baku, the RB21 received an element from the rear wing reshaped at the levels of support. These changes gave Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda a stronger platform to work and gave the Japanese driver the opportunity to highlight his brand new confidence.

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Yuki Tsunoda says he unlocked something ” after the best result of Baku in career

The strongest weekend of Yuki Tsunoda with Red Bull came to the Baku City circuit. He did the third quarter with a race of 1: 42,143 in a red flag qualification session, winner P6 on the grid behind the Mercedes pair. From hard tires, he acquired a position of track early, exceeding George Russell and holding fifth place for the first laps.

Strategy calls have proven to be decisive. When Norris opposed the mediums early, Tsunoda responded with a stop, joining the McLaren. Despite an attempted dive of Norris, he obtained P6, his best result since he joined Red Bull Racing.

After the race, he thought about what had changed in just a few weeks:

“Mark my best result with the team feels deserved. We put ourselves in an excellent position yesterday in the qualifications and we wanted to take advantage of this with the good promise that we showed in the long tracks in practice … The changes that we made to the car really worked this weekend and that allowed us to be more competitive than we were in the course of racing. Future races. “

The result gave Yuki Tsunoda a new momentum at a crucial time. With seven races to play, Red Bull faces a difficult decision for 2026, balancing five drivers out of four available seats. The ascent of Isack Hadjar and the arrival of Arvid Lindblad complicate the equation, but Baku has shown that Tsunoda could always assert his arguments.