Red Bull’s internal power struggle continues, Tsunoda the victim?.

After Verstappen, Tsunoda has been the most consistent of the four drivers under contract at Red Bull this season. In most Grands Prix, the little Japanese managed to outperform his more experienced teammate Daniel Ricciardo. Moreover, he captured almost twice as many points (20 to 11) as the Australian. That the latter therefore does not seem to be in the picture to possibly succeed Perez is thus easy to explain. That Tsunoda does not appear to be an option either is a lot more surprising at first sight. Especially considering who is.Liam Lawson is the leading candidate to succeed the Mexican in the event that Perez is sent off; a relatively inexperienced driver who has barely driven five Grands Prix and is preferred to a fast driver with 78 GP weekends to his credit by now. Well Lawson, no Tsunoda is yet another outgrowth of the internal power struggle currently still raging behind the scenes. It is anything but a secret that team boss Christian Horner and external adviser Helmut Marko are no longer on the same page, and upfront, Yuki Tsunoda is the brunt of that.In the past, Marko had the main voice in appointing the drivers of both Red Bull teams. Since Red Bull’s co-owner Dietrich Mateschitz passed away, the Austrian’s influence has been duly curtailed and Horner has taken on this task as well. It is therefore Horner who will soon make the final decision on whether Perez can stay and who, if any, will be his replacement. Lawson is Horner’s choice, Tsunoda Marko’s.Whatever Tsunoda does and how well he performs, Horner for some reason does not see it in the Japanese driver. GPblog has even learned that the team boss completely ignores Tsunoda and never exchanges a word with him. The fact that the 24-year-old driver does get to race at VCARB is purely down to the fact that it does engine supplier Honda a big favour.Knowing that Horner never sees Tsunoda moving on to Red Bull Racing, it is all the more remarkable that the Japanese driver in ’25 is allowed to stay on at what is primarily the training team – VCARB that is. Recently, Red Bull lightened the option in Tsunoda’s expiring commitment, ostensibly in an attempt to make a lot of money on him.Indeed, Tsunoda was high on Audi’s list as Nico Hulkenberg ‘s future teammate and with an ongoing contract, the Germans could be asked for a transfer fee for Tsunoda. Audi was surprised by the sudden lifting of the option in the contract – because they too knew Red Bull had no long-term future vision for Tsunoda – but immediately (and for now) deleted Tsunoda from the wish list. So Tsunoda is stuck with the Red Bull family for at least one more season, even if there is no possibility of progression to Red Bull Racing.With his strong statements last Thursday at the Hungaroring, Tsunoda at least got off his chest and let it be known: Hey, I’m here too!I cannot fathom why anyone at RB would choose to put Lawson in the seat next to Max. Dude’s a complete rookie. Sure he had one good race when he had to fill in for Daniel but so did De Vries and look what became of him. Daniel, Yuki or Sainz. Those are the only logical options as a replacement for Perez. And out of those i would say Sainz is the most logical right now unless Yuki has really learned to control his temper in which case he would be the most sensible choice in my opinion. So my pick would be Sainz at RB, Perez out. Then Daniel out at VCARB to be replaced with Lawson so he can show what he’s made of. Other option would be Yuki to RB, Lawson in at VCARB and keep Daniel for the experience and helping both rookie and team developLawson Horner’s candidate, Tsunoda Marko’s” I’m 99,99% sure, this is lies. Horner is not a stupid person. Teams have statistics for these kind of things, they have numbers. Everything is black and white. There are no candidates. Either you’re quicker or slower. It’s not about I like this and somebody likes something else. It’s not a modeling contest. Even we the spectators can see who’s who. The 3 RedBull driver list goes as follows, quickest Tsunoda, Ricciardo being slightly slower and then comes Lawson. Nobody in their clear mind, would want to put a rookie on RedBull seat, clearly not Horner with his experience. They have done this mistake too many times in the past. There’s 3 possibilites. Either Tsunoda or Ricciardo, as they are pretty much similar in pace. Between these 2, it’s hard to pick, can go either way. On mental side, possibly Ricciardo has the edge, as RedBull is not keen to have another explosive driver next to Verstappen. Ricciardo is more tamed by RedBull. He will do whatever team asks. Tsunoda has different mindset, he’s not there to do any favours to anyone. And then there’s Sainz. A driver you can’t go wrong with. And by the looks of it, Sainz doesn’t care about the money (so some top team could get him with cheap price), or he would have gone to Audi if he would have wanted the biggest earning.Yuki on 20 points. Daniuel on 11 points, so it is not quite double but is 82% more points, and consider that Yuki has out qualified Daniel 9-2 for all the races so far this year.It’s not only about points. For example Ricciardo said at the beginning of the season, that he finds it something being weird with car, then got new chassis and was it just a mental thing or it actually worked, but for example last 3 races, Ricciardo has finished infront of Tsunoda. If I would be a RedBull boss, surely I would not take the slowest driver. And like I said, there’s also the mental side. Tsunoda is explosive, Ricciardo is tamed. They are looking more of a driver who is Perez kind mentally, who will do whatever is asked. If I would bet, I would actually not bet anyone of these two Ricciardo or Tsunoda but actually Sainz.