Before the 2025 Formula 1 campaign actually began, figuring out the pecking order in the midfield based on pre-season testing was tricky, with the data pointing to a close fight.
Fast-forward two weeks, and Racing Bulls has consistently qualified top of the midfield – Yuki Tsunoda fifth in Melbourne, then Isack Hadjar up to seventh at Shanghai with his team-mate ninth. China’s sprint qualifying session delivered the same verdict, with Tsunoda eighth.
Yet, if it weren’t for the Japanese racer’s sixth in the Shanghai sprint, Racing Bulls would be point-less – even with a trio of disqualifications following the Chinese Grand Prix.
Down Under rain throws race upside down
The first missed opportunity came in Australia, where Tsunoda was overtaken by Charles Leclerc on the opening lap but ran sixth for most of the wet-dry-wet race.
When it started raining again at Albert Park, most cars pitted for intermediate tyres on lap 44. However, like the Ferraris, the Racing Bulls driver stayed out until lap 47, when increased rain meant they had no choice but to follow suit and change tyres. Tsunoda eventually finished 12th.
“We understood everything,” he commented a few days later in the Shanghai paddock. “It’s obviously a bit of a gamble and, at the same time, probably we had very painful memories from Brazil last year that we didn’t stay out, so definitely maybe that was creating a bit of a difficult decision for us.”
Back at the 2024 Brazilian Grand Prix, Tsunoda ran third for the first 26 laps, then was overtaken by Esteban Ocon and further lost out when he pitted for full-wet rubber while three drivers – Max Verstappen and both Alpine racers – were able to change tyres during a subsequent red flag and lock out the podium positions.
As far as the recent Melbourne race is concerned, Tsunoda said it was “hard” for him “to monitor every single corner because every lap keeps changing”. However, he added: “It was quite a clear situation that we should box. We reacted too late.
“I don’t think I made a mistake in terms of communication, everything, I’m pretty happy with it. We know what’s happened, and the team definitely apologised to me right after the race. That’s the most important thing, and we move on.”
Speaking to Autosport in an exclusive interview, team principal Laurent Mekies was keen to point out Racing Bulls had got other decisions right in that same race, but still took responsibility for this failure.
“We got the last [call] badly wrong,” Mekies said. “There is no bad luck, bad luck doesn’t exist in this game. So, we got it wrong.”
With hindsight, the Frenchman wishes the team’s strategists had accepted to “cut [their] losses” as early as they realised staying on track was not going to pay off – like Red Bull, Alpine and Haas did with Verstappen, Gasly and Ocon respectively – instead of gambling further on an eventual improvement in track conditions or a potential race interruption.
“In the end, [cutting your losses] is what it is about,” Mekies insisted. “If you are not in the first train of cars and you see an opportunity, if you don’t take it, you need to accept that you have lost something already compared to the guys that pitted straight away.
“So it’s how much, in that position, you accept to cut your losses – meaning ‘guys, it’s still a very good result, it’s raining out there’, compared to dreaming in that case of something even better which will never materialise, because the hard fact is that it’s too wet.
“It’s a work in progress. We’re still a young team, but I have no doubt that we have everything to perform very well in these conditions.”
Incidentally, Racing Bulls may be – to some extent – Red Bull’s junior squad, but calling it a “young team” is a stretch. After all, the team joined F1 in 1985 as Minardi and has been owned by the energy drinks giant for nearly 20 years, becoming an elaborate race operation with two race victories to its name.
Two stops – one too many – in China
Racing Bulls could have made amends for its Melbourne error at Shanghai – and to some extent did so in the sprint race as Tsunoda scored a valuable three points, but a much bigger opportunity was squandered on Sunday.
Pirelli had made it clear before the race that the only viable strategy would be a two-stopper, regardless of the compounds that may be used. The Italian brand’s motorsport chief Mario Isola added “I don’t think it’s a three-stop” and didn’t even mention the potential for a straightforward one-stop tactic, so remote did it look at the time.
In the end, tyre degradation was much less than planned, and all cars switched to a one-stop strategy, with a few notable exceptions: Lewis Hamilton (who had nothing to lose when he pitted again), Liam Lawson (who was terribly struggling)… and the Racing Bulls cars.
From ninth and seventh on the grid respectively, Tsunoda and Hadjar ran eighth and ninth in their first stint, then ninth and 12th in the middle run, before dropping to 15th and 16th following their second stop.
The additional performance from fresher rubber far from sufficed to compensate for the time lost in the pits. In fact, their respective fastest laps were barely faster – down to a few thousandths of a second – than Gabriel Bortoleto’s, with the Sauber driver on an effective one-stop after he pitted on lap 1.
Hadjar’s particular case highlighted the 20-year-old’s lack of experience as he felt he didn’t have the authority to question his strategy.
ANALYSIS: How did Hadjar compare to Tsunoda in first F1 race start at Shanghai?
“It’s my second race, in the end. It’s my first full race in Formula 1, so I’m not going to invent strategy,” the Frenchman, who failed to start in Melbourne after a spin on the formation lap, sullenly stated. “If we say the plan is this, then we stick to this, as simple as that. I’m not going to fight on race one.
“If we pitted only once, we would have finished in the points – at least P7,” he added – though there is little evidence he would have been able to claim such a result.
Tsunoda's race was ultimately scuppered by the freak front wing failure he suffered late on, but he still felt he should've been in contention for points before that problem.
“Very disappointed,” Tsunoda lamented. “We’re losing so much points, these two races. This kind of tight season, each point is very important, and we definitely have to maximise when we have the pace in the car. Now, it’s just wasting the pace in the car. We definitely have to refocus and score points from the next race onwards.”
This may not be Tsunoda's problem anymore as he's moving up to the Red Bull team, but the constructors’ standings corroborate his analysis. With two rounds down, Racing Bulls already has a 14-point deficit to Williams, which is currently fourth – on equal terms with Ferrari. Sixth-placed Haas leads the Italian outfit by 11 points.
Twenty-two grands prix to go is more than enough time for Racing Bulls to recover its deficit – but the Faenza-based squad can’t afford for its strategy to be a weakness in every race.
