Yuki Tsunoda is to driver Red Bull’s title-winning RB19 car from 2023 in a private test at Silverstone next week, the team have confirmed to PlanetF1.com.

Tsunoda has acquitted himself well since replacing Liam Lawson at Red Bull’s senior team after the first two races of the F1 2025 season, showing encouraging pace in the tricky RB21 car in Japan and Bahrain.

Yuki Tsunoda to drive Red Bull RB19 in private Silverstone test

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

The Japanese driver has had a breathless start to life at Red Bull with this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix marking the last race of the first triple header of the new season.

Red Bull are set to fast track Tsunoda’s bid to get up to speed by staging at test on Wednesday at Silverstone, the home of the British Grand Prix, where he will drive the RB19 car of 2023.

The run will come after further simulator work at the team’s Milton Keynes factory on Tuesday as Tsunoda continues to adjust to his new surroundings.

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The RB19 stands as the most successful car in F1 history having won all but one of a possible 22 races in 2023 as Max Verstappen stormed to a third consecutive World Championship.

The outing, which has been planned since Tsunoda was confirmed as Lawson’s replacement on March 27, is expected to give Tsunoda and Red Bull a chance to test various setups and ideas ahead of the next race in Miami on May 4.

Tsunoda’s test in the RB19 comes after Lawson was treated to a run in the same car at Jerez over the winter, allowing the New Zealander to get up to speed with Red Bull’s processes and systems in a real-world environment before driving the team’s F1 2025 car for the first time.

Tsunoda’s only previous experience of Red Bull machinery came at the 2024 post-season test in Abu Dhabi last December as he drove Verstappen’s title-winning RB20 car.

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Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com in Jeddah on Thursday, Tsunoda issued a progress update on his start to life at Red Bull, revealing that he is “getting there” with the RB21.

He said: “I wouldn’t say 100 per cent [confident] yet, but it’s definitely more than for sure Suzuka and more than how I started in Bahrain, so it’s getting there.

“These things won’t go straight away. Especially in Saudi you need to build up anyway throughout the week, but definitely more confidence than last week.

“In terms of confidence level, I’m quite happy with the level I am considering [I have only done] two races. I’m sure it will come more.

“But I’m just trying to understand how this car operates, how this car performs well.

“There are a lot of reasons for it to perform well, performing the window that this car wants, like [tyre] warm up and setups and those things I don’t fully understand yet.

“I don’t really understand even half of it, so these things are the key that I’m trying to work on really hard to understand soon as possible so I can work on different sort of stuff, also to development and whatever.

“But so far I’m able to kind of put it all together in qualifying and race, but it’s quite up and down still. There’s a bit of up and down from FP1 to FP3.”

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