Drained of confidence, incapable of delivering in a car that seems to suit Max Verstappen’s style so seamlessly, competing alongside Formula 1’s next all-time great. Yuki Tsunoda isn’t the first driver to struggle, and ultimately be replaced, at Red Bull.
A proven race winner in Daniel Ricciardo — and touted juniors Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and Liam Lawson — know it all too well as sidekicks to Verstappen.
But why would a team renowned for its driver academy continue to grind down its stars? A potential answer came from former team boss Christian Horner: “Max is the hardest teammate in the world to have.”
For the quadruple world champion’s eight-plus years in Red Bull colours, that has been abundantly clear — as spelled out in this timeline of the poisoned chalice that is the role of Verstappen’s teammate.
Daniel Ricciardo | Verstappen’s teammate 2016-18
Head-to-head qualifying record vs. Verstappen: 24-34
Head-to-head race record vs. Verstappen: 21-35
May 15, 2016: While Ricciardo was undoubtedly top dog at Red Bull to start 2016, the devastating Verstappen era would start on this sunny Sunday in Spain. Verstappen, just 17 years old and debuting in the car after being thrust from the junior team to replace Daniil Kvyat, won the Spanish Grand Prix in spectacular fashion.
Ricciardo, whose reputation was still sky high after beating teammate and four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel two years earlier, was not threatened just yet, but the sheer magnitude of Verstappen’s achievement meant it was clear that Red Bull suddenly had two bonafide No. 1 drivers. Teams rarely get through the resulting intra-team politics of such situations unscathed.
July 30, 2017: Verstappen and Ricciardo had already had on-track skirmishes before 2017’s Hungarian GP rolled around, the pair fighting fiercely but respectfully on multiple occasions, but Budapest proved, for the first time, that some frustration was building.
“Was that who I think it was?” Ricciardo asked on team radio after being crashed out of the race by his teammate in the opening corners. As the field trundled past Ricciardo’s stricken car on the next lap, the Australian raised his middle finger at Verstappen. Ricciardo already knew he had a match for pace inside the team, and now there were no holds barred.
Oct. 20, 2017: Even though Ricciardo was out of contract at the end of 2018, already attracting interest and leading his teammate in the drivers’ standings, Red Bull announced a new deal for Verstappen prior to 2017’s United States GP. Crucially, it was one that made him the higher paid of the team’s two drivers. It was understandable why Red Bull would want to tie down its starlet, particularly with Mercedes circling, but you couldn’t blame Ricciardo if he felt his team was starting to mobilise around Verstappen.
April 29, 2018: In Azerbaijan came a collision that was not just damaging on the day for Red Bull, but long after. Ricciardo and Verstappen’s rivalry had finally resulted in a huge crash, one that ruined a race-winning opportunity for a seemingly competitive Red Bull and Verstappen was, by paddock consensus, in the wrong.
That wasn’t the message Red Bull put out, though, externally or internally.
“I felt there was a bit of equal blame,” Ricciardo would recall a year later, “but I felt like I was not really in the wrong. I guess the way it was handled at the time didn’t sit too well with me.”
Aug. 3, 2018: The day Ricciardo shocked the world. Despite possessing a contract offer from Red Bull, Ricciardo announced that he would join Renault, back in the sport and languishing in the midfield.
“Is he [Ricciardo] making the right career choice?” Horner asked in that year’s “Drive to Survive.” “My assumption is that he is running from a fight.”
Pierre Gasly | Verstappen’s teammate 2019
Head-to-head qualifying record vs. Verstappen: 1-11
Head-to-head race record vs. Verstappen: 1-11
Feb. 28, 2019: Red Bull had high hopes for the 2019 season, but one driver was already struggling before the lights had gone out for the first race. A week after hitting the barriers on week one of testing, Gasly, struggling with a car Verstappen appeared at ease with, endured a huge shunt in Barcelona, one so rarely seen in non-race weekend conditions. With Red Bull running out of spare parts at that test, the pressure was already on.
July 28, 2019: Gasly was in a world of trouble as F1 rolled into Germany, having beaten Verstappen in a race and qualifying only once all season and with an average Saturday deficit of half a second. Pushing to match his teammate, Gasly crashed in Hockenheim practice and then again on race day, all while Verstappen stormed to what is still one of the finest victories of his career. The narrative of Verstappen shining and Gasly struggling was proving impossible to shift.
Aug. 12, 2019: Gasly hoped some time off in F1’s summer break would relax him before a huge second half of the season, but Hungary, where the Frenchman was lapped for the second time in a month by Verstappen in the same car, would prove to be his final race with the team. Red Bull were so concerned with Gasly’s performances that they replaced him with a driver just 12 races into his F1 career. Albon, who was only confirmed on the F1 grid that January, was scooped up from Toro Rosso, with Gasly returning to his former team.
“It was a difficult time for me at Red Bull because I didn’t feel like I was really supported and treated the same way as others there have been,” Gasly said in the Players’ Tribune in 2021. “It was just never going to work.”
Alex Albon | Verstappen’s teammate 2019-20
Head-to-head qualifying record vs. Verstappen: 1-25
Head-to-head race record vs. Verstappen: 8-17
Aug. 1, 2020: Albon impressed Red Bull enough in the final nine races of 2019 to earn another year with the team, but his average qualifying deficit to Verstappen on those weekends had more than doubled to six tenths of a second once the British GP rolled around in 2020. Albon was struggling so much with the car that he swapped race engineers prior to the Silverstone race, where he eventually crashed in practice before being knocked out in Q2 in qualifying and then picked up a penalty in the race on his way to an eighth-place finish.
Sept. 26, 2020: In Russia, things went from bad to worse. While Verstappen was single-handedly taking the fight to Mercedes at the front — splitting Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas — Albon qualified 1.1 seconds adrift of his teammate.
Dec. 18, 2020: Albon saved one of his best performances in the car for the season-ending round at Abu Dhabi, but he crossed the line in fourth, 19.9 seconds adrift of the race winner: Verstappen. After the season, Red Bull replaced him with the out-of-contract-but-in-form Pérez.
“A lot of people say that car is built around Max,” Albon reflected on the “High Performance Podcast” last year. “But he’s kind of like the Michael Schumacher of Ferrari. He’s created this team around him. He also has quite a unique driving style, and it’s not that easy to get along with.”
Sergio Pérez | Verstappen’s teammate 2021-24
Head-to-head qualifying record vs. Verstappen: 10-79
Head-to-head race record vs. Verstappen: 10-80
May 31, 2022: The 2022 season brought with it all-new regulations, and to start, the Red Bull seemed to suit Pérez more than Verstappen. While the Dutchman still appeared superior, Pérez — for one of the first occasions at Red Bull — dominated Verstappen all weekend in Monaco, winning a chaotic race around the famous streets of Monte Carlo. Afterward, he was handed a new contract for another two years, but wouldn’t win another race all season while his teammate romped to his second straight drivers’ crown.
May 7, 2023: Pérez had helped Red Bull to its first constructors’ champion in nine years in 2022, but heading into round five of 2023 in Miami, was targeting individual glory. “I am fighting for [the title],” he said after winning the previous race in Azerbaijan, which left him six points behind Verstappen. Around the Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium, however, it all came crashing down for “Checo.”
Pérez started on pole and was considered the favourite for the race win, given Verstappen in the other dominant Red Bull was down in ninth, but the Dutchman didn’t just storm through the field, he sailed past Perez with ten laps remaining. That win in Baku proved to be his final victory with Red Bull.
June 4, 2024: Despite three poor races in May — finishing fourth in Miami, eighth in Imola and crashing out at Monaco — Red Bull handed Pérez a new two-year contract with the hope of restoring their No. 2 driver’s confidence.
“We elected to go early, which obviously didn’t work,” Horner recently said of the decision to sign the deal so soon in a new season.
Oct. 27, 2024: Red Bull was still publicly backing Pérez when the Mexico City GP came around, with the home favourite now in last-chance-saloon territory. What followed was a Q1 exit, before a sloppy race that saw him finish 17th. If a home race and a battle for the constructors’ title couldn’t galvanise their driver, what else could?
Dec. 8, 2024: The speculation was ramping up heading to the season finale in Abu Dhabi, with Horner admitting there would be talks about Pérez’s future after the race. Pérez retired the car for the second week running, and finished the season eighth in the championship with 152 points to his name — just 35% of Verstappen’s final tally — and without even a top-five finish since Monaco.
Dec. 18, 2024: Pérez and Red Bull announced that the now-34-year-old driver from Mexico would not continue alongside Verstappen in 2025, with Liam Lawson the next man drafted in from Racing Bulls. Red Bull, for now, overlooked Yuki Tsunoda …
Liam Lawson | Verstappen’s teammate 2025
Head-to-head qualifying record vs. Verstappen: 0-2
Head-to-head race record vs. Verstappen: 0-2
March 16, 2025: Lawson, with just 11 F1 races under his belt before his debut with Red Bull in Australia, didn’t get off to the best of starts. After qualifying 18th the Kiwi crashed out in changing conditions. The pressure was already on.
March 22, 2025: A week later, there was already speculation about Lawson’s seat at the Chinese GP — and he hardly helped that with his performances in qualifying. Lawson qualified last for both the sprint and race and in the race itself, only managed to recover to 14th. Meanwhile, Horner was refusing to rule out a switch to Tsunoda, who insisted he was “100% ready” to step in after a strong start to the season.
March 27, 2025: After just two races with Red Bull, Lawson was confirmed to be heading back to the sister team. Red Bull called it a “purely sporting decision” to replace him with Tsunudo who, having previously been overlooked, would bring more experience to the team to help with its troublesome car.
Yuki Tsunoda | Verstappen’s teammate 2025
Head-to-head qualifying record vs. Verstappen: 0-21
Head-to-head race record vs. Verstappen: 1-18
April 6, 2025: Tsunoda became Verstappen’s third teammate in the last four races at the Japanese GP, qualfying 14th and finishing 12th as Verstappen romped to victory.
April 13, 2025: The Japanese driver scored his first points for Red Bull in Bahrain, finishing ninth — but early on it was clear he still wasn’t able to challenge Verstappen closely.
April 20, 2025: Tsunoda qualified nine tenths off Verstappen in Saudi Arabia before crashing out on the first lap after tangling with Gasly. So far, not so good.
May 4, 2025: Tsunoda recovered from the pit-lane to finish 10th in Miami, he would only score points once — at the next race in Imola — over the next eight rounds. September was the next time he scored points, by which point the writing was already very much on the wall.
Nov. 29, 2025: After Tsunoda outqualified Verstappen for the first time this season in sprint qualifying, he maintained his fifth-placed position in the sprint to secure his best-ever finish in a Red Bull. Their minds, however, were already made up.
Dec. 2, 2025: The dreaded statement landed: Tsunoda was out, with Isack Hadjar the latest to pick up the poisoned chalice.
