Scoring just two points in his three races for Red Bull, former F1 team boss Guenther Steiner believes Yuki Tsunoda is in the middle of a “test”.

And if he fails, Isack Hadjar will be the next driver to line up alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull.

Is it Red Bull Racing or bust for Yuki Tsunoda?

Red Bull became the first team of the F1 2025 season to make an in-season driver change, the team demoting Liam Lawson from Red Bull to VCARB after just two races.

That decision meant Tsunoda finally realised his Red Bull driver ambition as he climbed into the RB21 at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Qualifying 15th at Suzuka, it was the first time that the second RB21 had escaped Q1, while a race later in Bahrain, he secured a Q3 showing and the car’s first points of the campaign with a P9 result.

He wasn’t able to build on that in Saudi Arabia, involved in a first lap collision with former Red Bull driver Pierre Gasly.

But the good news for Tsunoda, he’s been guaranteed the season by Helmut Marko.

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“Yuki Tsunoda will finish the season,” the Red Bull motorsport advisor told Formel1.de in the days leading up to Tsunoda’s Red Bull debut.

“Yuki Tsunoda is a fast driver, we know that, but he’s had his ups and downs. That’s why we thought Lawson was the better and stronger candidate.

“But Yuki has undergone a transformation. He changed his management, and in this situation, this was simply the best option.”

Next season though, is by no means guaranteed especially as Marko believes Red Bull may have found the next “big one”, and it is not the Japanese driver.

The 81-year-old has been very impressed with Red Bull’s newest VCARB rookie, Isack Hadjar, who has bounced back from an “embarrassing” formation lap crash on his debut in Australia.

The 20-year-old has two top-ten results to his name in the F1 2025 championship and has avoided Q1 elimination in all six qualifying sessions, even managing two top-ten showings.

It has former Haas F1 team boss Steiner declaring that if Tsunoda fails his Red Bull “test”, Hadjar will be the next driver to line up alongside Verstappen.

As for Tsunoda, he won’t be parachuted back to VCARB like Lawson, he’ll be out as the Italian reckons Arvid Lindblad will then become Lawson’s VCARB team-mate.

Put to him that VCARB would replace Isack Hadjar or Liam Lawson with Arvid Lindblad next year, Steiner told The Red Flags podcast: “I think they want a little bit of calm in there.

“I mean Hadjar could go to Red Bull from VCARB if Tsunoda goes. I mean, if Yuki doesn’t do anything good, I think it is a test for him.

“I don’t think that Yuki goes back to VCARB, either he stays at Red Bull or he goes somewhere else or he goes home but I don’t think he goes back to VCARB.

“And if that happens Hadjar, obviously, it will be that he’s a candidate for that one if they have a seat free.

“At the moment, I see it staying how it is because I don’t think they will let Liam Lawson go after what happened in the beginning of this season. They will give him another second year at VCARB and then see what to do.

“Lindblad is very young, so, I think we shouldn’t now jump to the conclusion because he won his first F2 race that he’s the next F1 World Champion.”

Hadjar, who has been labelled the “surprise of the season” by Marko, is one of several Red Bull junior drivers keen to test themselves against Verstappen, the 20-year-old admitting climbing into the Red Bull is the goal.

“Honestly, now that it seems like it’s really hard to be next to Max, it makes me want to go even more, to find out why, what’s going on. That’s still the main target,” he said.

“It’s not like I don’t need to work anymore. Still, I always put the pressure on me to keep delivering. So now the expectations from people are maybe a bit higher, but I keep doing what I do.

“Like I said before the season, my target would be to keep… If the car can finish in P9 or P8, I want to be there, maximise it, not being outside the top 10. If the car deserves the top 10, then I need to be on it.”

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