Yuki Tsunoda made his debut with Red Bull Racing at the Japanese Grand Prix after an unexpected swap with Liam Lawson — but did he do enough to justify the move?

Helmut Marko, the team’s senior advisor, was asked for his thoughts after the race by Sky Germany.

Yuki Tsunoda’s qualifying conundrum

On paper, the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix lacked quite a bit of pizzazz. The top three drivers carved away from the pack to fight their own battle, while further down the field, overtaking proved a challenge.

That being said, Tsunoda did manage to pick off a few drivers en route to his 12th-place finish, having started from 15th.

However, that did leave him finishing outside of the points, and Liam Lawson’s inability to add to Red Bull’s championship total had been a key factor in his demotion back to Racing Bulls.

With Max Verstappen taking his first victory of the season, one of the biggest questions after the race centered around how Red Bull would analyze Tsunoda’s performance in light of all that has gone on this year.

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One of the first people to speak up was senior Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko — a man who can be a tough critic at the best of times.

Speaking to Sky Germany after the race, Marko stated, “Overtaking here is incredibly difficult. He drove a solid race, but it shows how important qualifying is.”

That was similar to the sentiment he shared with Motorsport.com.

“It was good,” Marko told the site.

“It was just unlucky that in Qualifying 2 he had this mistake. But otherwise it was fine.”

For a man like Marko, that’s high praise indeed — particularly as Tsunoda himself admitted that he had “mixed feelings” about a result he’d hoped would have been more impressive at his home race.

That being said, the overall performance of the team was enough to have Helmut Marko practically jubilant, a fact that largely centered around Max Verstappen’s victory from pole position.

“He didn’t make a mistake, drive absolutely at the limit, only he can do that. He always controlled the distance, masterfully!” Marko told Sky Germany.

It was enough for him to declare that the World Championship is still a firm possibility.

“We are far from giving up,” Marko said.

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