Tsunoda enters battle with Ricciardo for Red Bull seat next to Verstappen

With Daniel Ricciardo's comeback at AlphaTauri, the pressure is mounting on Sergio Perez. The Mexican has been underperforming in recent race weekends. Christian Horner confirmed that a spot may become available in 2025, and so Ricciardo and AlphaTauri teammate Yuki Tsunoda, among others, will compete for it.

Tsunoda is riding a strong season so far. He managed to beat Nyck de Vries in almost every weekend, and even picked up points for his Italian team. As such, the Japanese would definitely like to go for the seat next to Max Verstappen at Red Bull, but he will have to beat Ricciardo, he told Crash.net, among others: "It’ll be clear soon, but either driver will be slower and the slower guy won’t make it to Red Bull. That’s easy, the faster guy has more chance to go to Red Bull, it’s how it works in Formula 1, that’s it."

The battle within the team could be quite a tricky one for Tsunoda. The Japanese driver's new teammate managed to win eight races, and has the necessary experience. Nevertheless, Pierre Gasly's former teammate is not worried much: "Daniel is not an easy driver to beat, but at the same time I’ll do what I did in the last couple of races and it’s clear the faster guy will stay or go up, that’s it."