{"id":28565,"date":"2024-12-16T05:35:32","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T10:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=28565"},"modified":"2024-12-16T05:39:52","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T10:39:52","slug":"yuki-tsunoda-impresses-red-bull-after-rb20-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/12\/16\/yuki-tsunoda-impresses-red-bull-after-rb20-test\/","title":{"rendered":"Yuki Tsunoda impresses Red Bull after RB20 test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/12\/13\/yuki-tsunoda-red-bull-divided-over-the-24-year-olds-future\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Yuki Tsunoda<\/a> awaits Red Bull&#8217;s final decision on their 2025 line-up. The Japanese driver, alongside Liam Lawson, is a leading contender to be promoted. During his post-season test in the RB20, Tsunoda impressed Red Bull.<\/p>\n<h2>Helmut Marko analyses Tsunoda RB20 performance<\/h2>\n<p>At this, there is no shortage of analysis into Red Bull&#8217;s driver situation.<\/p>\n<p>The Milton Keynes squad are expected to announce either <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/12\/10\/why-yuki-tsunoda-is-at-a-dead-end-with-red-bull\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Yuki Tsunoda<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/12\/07\/liam-lawson-set-to-replace-sergio-perez-at-red-bull\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Liam Lawson<\/a> as Verstappen&#8217;s new teammate in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Generally speaking, team principal Christian Horner is understood to see Lawson as the best option to join the main team.<\/p>\n<p>Helmut Marko has also praised Lawson&#8217;s results, though the 81-year-old has been consistently positive about Tsunoda for the last few seasons.<\/p>\n<p>With this in mind, perhaps it is unsurprising to see Marko give such a glowing review of Tsunoda&#8217;s RB20 test.<\/p>\n<p>As mentioned by <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/12\/11\/f1-news-honda-back-tsunoda-in-red-bull-driver-talks\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Honda&#8217;s President in a recent press conference<\/a>, the 24-year-old impressed Red Bull with his feedback in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n<p>As speculation looms over Red Bull&#8217;s big decision, every data point must be analysed:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;We will be announcing news in the next few days about what the driver pairing will look like next year,&#8221; <\/em>Helmut Marko wrote on Speedweek.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;There is a lot of speculation and transfer fees are being mentioned that are complete nonsense.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;During the post-season tests, Yuki Tsunoda was allowed to take to the track in the RB20 and the team was happy with his technical feedback.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;In this respect, he is far better than people give him credit for.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"ohmObriLQet8CZ4-aGJkag\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2188629063\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'ohmObriLQet8CZ4-aGJkag',sig:'g4ymg5fyONAR1k6ot5Odbly46isGYM2W--nqF2CSx4E=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2188629063',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Uncertainty looms as talks persist<\/h4>\n<p>It is difficult to determine whether Red Bull&#8217;s line-up for 2025 will be influenced by Tsunoda&#8217;s RB20 test.<\/p>\n<p>As mentioned previously on LWOS, it was only Honda&#8217;s insistence that secured Tsunoda this run in the first place &#8211; rather than Red Bull&#8217;s eagerness to see him behind their machinery.<\/p>\n<p>With this in mind, Tsunoda&#8217;s post-season test could be inconsequential in Christian Horner and Helmut Marko&#8217;s final judgement.<\/p>\n<p>There is plenty of evidence pointing towards Liam Lawson as the favourite to join Red Bull.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/10\/30\/christian-horner-confirms-red-bull-interest-in-franco-colapinto\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Christian Horner&#8217;s comments throughout the year<\/a> &#8211; especially those since Lawson&#8217;s arrival &#8211; make his first choice for 2025 relatively clear.<\/p>\n<p>The question is whether anything has changed behind the scenes over the last few weeks.<\/p>\n<p>After all, Red Bull&#8217;s announcement for next season is taking more time than initially anticipated. The expectation after the Abu Dhabi GP was that their line-up would be confirmed by the end of last week.<\/p>\n<p>For reasons still unclear, negotiations are still ongoing in the background.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the expectation is that Red Bull will finally end the speculation with official news this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yuki Tsunoda awaits Red Bull&#8217;s final decision on their 2025 line-up. The Japanese driver, alongside Liam Lawson, is a leading contender to be promoted. During his post-season test in the RB20, Tsunoda impressed Red Bull. Helmut Marko analyses Tsunoda RB20 performance At this, there is no shortage of analysis into Red Bull&#8217;s driver situation. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":28291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,78,2394],"class_list":["post-28565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-tsunoda"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28565"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28572,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28565\/revisions\/28572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}