Yuki Tsunoda just delivered a ‘very painful blow’ to Red Bull which could impact Max Verstappen’s 2026 F1 title chances

Red Bull Racing driver Yuki Tsunoda knows he needs to produce a perfect race weekend sooner rather than later to avoid feeling the inevitable pressure that comes when racing alongside Max Verstappen.

The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix once again highlighted the gulf between Max Verstappen and the rest of the field.

Verstappen failed to put his Red Bull on pole position, losing out to drivers’ championship leader Oscar Piastri, but was able to start on the front row ahead of George Russell and Lando Norris.

Piastri admitted making an error going into the first corner, allowing Verstappen to race off into the lead and storm to the 65th victory of his Formula 1 career.

Yuki Tsunoda’s race weekend couldn’t have been any different in the adjacent Red Bull garage.

A huge crash in qualifying on his first flying run saw the Japanese driver starting from the pit lane on a track where he would have been hoping his experience could have shone through to deliver a decent result.

He managed to recover to 10th to score the final championship point on Sunday, but journalist Ronald Vording thinks this week might have done more harm than good to Red Bull’s future prospects.

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Yuki Tsunoda created a ‘very big’ financial loss for Red Bull at Imola with qualifying crash

Vording was speaking on the Motorsport NL YouTube channel after the race about Tsunoda’s crash and explained: “Red Bull had to collect some parts to be able to build another car, which meant that Tsunoda also drove with an old floor.

“One thing, we couldn’t say it yesterday, so we’ll say it today.

“If we zoom out, it has, of course, been a very painful blow for Red Bull, also in terms of their budget ceiling.

“Yes, this has been a very big loss and you have to manage all your financial resources between this year’s car, the further development and next year’s.

“So, if you have too many of these kinds of crashes, then it comes at the expense of updates.

“Now, next week we have a circuit on the calendar where I know the crash barriers are quite close everywhere.

“So, let’s hope that Yuki doesn’t repeat this and that he manages to keep out of the barriers everywhere because that is welcome for Red Bull.”

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How Yuki Tsunoda’s crash could impact Max Verstappen’s 2026 title ambitions

Every Formula 1 team is now bound by the cost cap rules brought in by the sport to try and make racing more competitive, but this is already putting a strain on each manufacturer’s resources.

Newcomers Cadillac are already bound by cost cap rules, despite not having a 2025 car to work from ahead of next season.

The problem for the 10 teams on the grid is splitting their resources between this season and next year.

Giving up on this season too early could cost a team millions in prize money, while making the switch too late could put an outfit on the back foot for years to come.

Red Bull are developing their own power unit for the first time in 2026, and so losing hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not millions, in crash damage due to Tsunoda’s shunt means that resources will need to be stripped back elsewhere within the company.

That could hurt Verstappen’s title chances at Red Bull next year as Vording explains and Tsunoda can’t afford to make a similar mistake in Monaco where the margins are even finer.