Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda have spent the break between last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix and the Singapore GP in rather contrasting ways.
While Verstappen has returned to the legendary Nordschleife to record his GT3 debut in the Nurburgring Langstrecken-Serie (NLS) driving a Ferrari 296, Tsunoda flew to Japan to visit the Tokyo Game Show on the back of registering his best result of the 2025 F1 season so far.
Tsunoda secured a P6 finish in the Azerbaijan GP, while Verstappen won his fourth race this season in Baku. Red Bull had not seen Tsunoda finish higher than P9 since the 25-year-old’s promotion from Racing Bulls, and he had scored points in just one of the prior nine rounds.
His result in Baku also yielded eight of Tsunoda’s 20 points for the season so far, of which he scored three before replacing Liam Lawson at Red Bull in March. It even came at a key time, with Red Bull bosses disagreeing about Tsunoda’s future with his contract expiring this year.
Red Bull F1 driver Yuki Tsunoda pleads with fans to ‘please keep supporting me’
It was reported that Red Bull had internally confirmed that Tsunoda would leave them once his contract lapses. But the Kanagawa native backing up his P9 in the Dutch Grand Prix with P6 in Baku has started to give the Honda-backed racer hope of being on the F1 grid in 2026.
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Tsunoda believes his recent upturn in form has come about as he is “starting to understand” the Red Bull RB21 more with 15 Grand Prix weekends under his belt. So, Tsunoda hopes the fans at the 2025 Tokyo Game Show continue to support not just Red Bull, but also back him.
Tsunoda told attendees, via quotes by the Japanese edition of Motorsport.com: “I saw quite a few people wearing Red Bull T-shirts. Thank you so much.
“I think I’m on the upswing now, and I’m starting to understand the Red Bull car better. I had a good result last week, too.
“I want to keep this momentum going and, of course, aim for even better results. And I want to keep scoring points.
“Please keep supporting Red Bull, and me.”
Yuki Tsunoda may only have three races to secure a seat on the 2026 F1 grid
It is not common for an F1 driver to plead with fans to “please” support them. But a difficult year since joining Red Bull has now left Tsunoda feeling the need to ask his fans to continue to back him. Yet Tsunoda needs to maintain his upturn to give those fans a driver to support.
It is possible that Tsunoda could return to Racing Bulls in 2026, but Red Bull will want to see further points in the next few rounds to convince them to re-sign him. Red Bull chief Helmut Marko has stated that Tsunoda has until around the Mexico City Grand Prix to secure a seat.
The Mexico City GP is only in three rounds’ time, following the Singapore GP next week and the United States GP on October 17-19. So, Tsunoda aims to keep scoring points, with Red Bull also now 18 points from Ferrari in the fight for P2 in the F1 constructors’ championship.