For years, the Red Bull driver programme lifted Yuki Tsunoda up the ladder and then, in the space of a single season, dropped him straight through the trapdoor. His dream shot alongside Max Verstappen turned into a cold reminder of how ruthless the system can be, and just as Tsunoda was pushed out of a race seat for 2026, the man who believed in him most, Helmut Marko, walked out the door too.
Suddenly, the biggest question isn’t why Tsunoda lost the seat, it’s whether Marko’s departure makes his road back to F1 tougher… or just opened a new one.
What pushed him out of the seat in the first place was no mystery. The reasons behind the call weren’t exactly subtle. Stacked against Verstappen, Tsunoda simply couldn’t keep up. Moreover, Hadjar proved to be a more promising driver, marking a top-three finish in his rookie season with a slower car.
Just like that, Tsunoda’s once-straightforward career arc became a maze of what-ifs shaped not only by Hadjar’s rise, but by the departure of the very man who championed him into F1.
In the end, Tsunoda’s brief stint alongside Verstappen underlined just how brutal that yardstick is. Across 2025, the numbers told a brutal story: Tsunoda scraped together just 33 points while Verstappen detonated the scoreboard with 396. Yet even after being dropped, he told reporters he had “no regrets” about the move, saying his only frustration was not fully maximizing the Racing Bulls package before his promotion.
Will Yuki Tsunoda continue with Red Bull after Helmut Marko’s departure?
The grid for the 2026 F1 season is set. Red Bull has filled the other Racing Bulls’ seat by signing the rookie Arvid Lindblad for next season. Moreover, Cadillac already announced Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their full-time drivers for the season. This raises the question: What remains for Yuki Tsunoda?
Team boss Laurent Mekies has been careful to frame 2026 as a pause, not a dead end. Speaking to the media after Abu Dhabi, he pointed out how fast things can change in F1, reminding everyone that Tsunoda himself only got the Red Bull race seat because an earlier Lawson promotion didn’t work out, and said the Japanese driver “can absolutely hope for a second chance” if circumstances shift again.
Well, Red Bull hasn’t dropped him from the squad. Although he wasn’t the strongest driver on the grid in the 2025 F1 season, he is a valuable driver for the team, owing to his consistent performances and experience on the grid. Considering this, Red Bull Racing announced that it will continue with Tsunoda as its test and reserve driver for the 2026 season.
“Everyone in the sport would agree it is impossible not to like Yuki; his personality is infectious, and he has become a very special part of the Red Bull family,” RBR team principal Laurent Mekies said. “On behalf of everyone at Red Bull, I thank him for what he has contributed so far, and we know he will provide invaluable support to the 2026 projects moving forward.”
[Image of Max Verstappen and Helmut Marko]
Tsunoda’s entire path to F1 ran through that ecosystem: he joined the Red Bull Junior Team in 2019 as part of Honda’s Formula Dream Project, with Marko said to be impressed by his charge through F3 and F2, where he finished third in the 2020 F2 standings and earned fast-tracked promotion to AlphaTauri in 2021.
Marko’s exit matters because he was Tsunoda’s most powerful advocate inside the Red Bull system. It was Marko who fast-tracked him through F3, F2, and into AlphaTauri, and several insiders have noted that Tsunoda’s place in the Red Bull orbit was protected largely because of Marko’s influence. With Marko gone, the junior program shifts to a more committee-driven structure under Laurent Mekies and Enrico Balbo.
Depending on how the new leadership evaluates Tsunoda, this could cut two ways. He may lose the internal protection Marko once provided, but he also enters a structure less tied to hierarchy and more open to reshuffling drivers based on simulator data, adaptability, and 2026-car development.
Either way, Marko’s exit guarantees that Tsunoda’s path back to a race seat won’t follow the same rules, and that’s exactly why his future inside Red Bull has become more unpredictable than ever.
Why did Helmut Marko step away from Red Bull?
Helmut Marko has been an integral part of Red Bull Racing since the team’s inception in the 2005 season. Many of his decisions as the team’s advisor have helped them clinch eight Drivers’ and six Constructors’ Championships through the years. However, why did he decide to step away at the end of the 2025 season?
Narrowly missing out on the world championship this season has moved me deeply and made it clear to me that now is the right moment for me personally to end this very long, intense, and successful chapter,” Marko said, departing from the team.
While Marko will no longer be present in the Red Bull garage from 2026 onward, his protégé steps into a reserve role where simulator work, development input, and any track time he earns could define whether this next chapter becomes a reset… or the start of his comeback.
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