How Alex Dunne’s McLaren outing shows Red Bull that changing drivers isn’t the solution

Yuki Tsunoda now has nine grands prix under his belt with Red Bull, after taking over Liam Lawson’s Formula 1 seat from the Japanese Grand Prix.

The impact has been negligible so far. Tsunoda has scored just seven points in that time, while team-mate Max Verstappen has racked up 119. Tsunoda’s recent qualifying results don’t paint a better picture either. Including penalties, the Japanese driver has started the past five races from grid positions of 20th, 12th, 19th, 18th, and again 18th.

Normally, such results would ramp up the pressure, but this time the situation at Red Bull is different. If the past six months have shown anything, it’s that the core issue doesn’t lie with the drivers. Sergio Perez couldn’t deliver last year (and now claims the team regrets letting him go), Liam Lawson failed to make an impact in the limited time he was given, and Tsunoda is now in the same boat. The problem is structural — hence team advisor Helmut Marko’s repeated insistence that the Japanese driver will finish the season at Red Bull.

One might even cynically say that Tsunoda’s performance barely matters — as long as he avoids expensive crashes. With the cost cap in place and 2026 looming, damage repairs eat into the development budget. But, from a sporting perspective, Red Bull seems headed for P4 in the constructors’ championship no matter who occupies the second seat.

There are no obvious alternatives either: Isack Hadjar has admitted that he doesn’t yet feel ready, and it would be unwise for Red Bull to once again prematurely derail the career of a young talent. Lawson has already had a shot, and Arvid Lindblad is a longer-term project, with Racing Bulls intended to be the natural stepping stone. Realistically, there are no immediate substitutes.

That’s why Red Bull’s team leaders are responding with more measured language this time, even after Tsunoda finished last of the classified drivers in the Austrian GP. With one Red Bull, one Mercedes, and both Williams cars out of the race, failing to score even a single point was extremely painful, yet Horner stuck to a factual breakdown in his post-race media session: “Yuki had a horrible race, again it started to go wrong for him in Q1. His first run in Q1 was fine, but in the second run he made a mistake at Turn 1, then qualified badly, then was running in traffic, unable to pass, picks up a penalty, and it just compounds things.”

“We’ll look to see how we can support him, but there’s a big delta between the two cars, and of course internally we ask all of those questions,” Horner added in Red Bull’s hospitality area. “Obviously the car has evolved over years in a specific direction, but we’ll see if we can help Yuki and rebuild his confidence in Silverstone.” It’s different from the pressure campaigns Red Bull and Marko have used in the past, but given the lack of alternatives, it makes sense.

Dunne’s FP1 session was another eye-opener

Alexander Dunne, McLaren

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

If Red Bull has learned one thing in recent months, it’s that the problem lies with the car — not the drivers. Verstappen said as much in a Dutch media session weeks ago, defending Tsunoda: “Yuki is not a pancake, right?” – using the Dutch word ‘pannenkoek’, which is slang for someone who’s hopeless or completely incompetent. “When he was in Racing Bulls, he always looked good compared to Hadjar. And this problem has been going on for a long time. Maybe that’s also a sign.” When asked what it says, he replied: “You can answer that yourself.”

During the Spielberg weekend, Red Bull received another “sign” — this time outside its own garage. Formula 2 driver Alex Dunne completed his first-ever F1 practice session with McLaren — and finished fourth, just two tenths off the fastest time. Sure, questions remain about fuel loads and engine modes, and those may have been more favourable to Dunne — but Red Bull still drew a clear conclusion.

When Motorsport.com sat down with Marko to talk about Red Bull’s second-seat headache, the Austrian admitted he had seen Dunne’s onboard footage. “He had a few little moments here and there, but when the McLaren has a small slide, the car almost corrects itself,” he said. “With us, it’s always a tightrope walk — constantly balancing between going off or barely keeping the car on the track.”

Marko pointed to FP3 at the Red Bull Ring, where both Red Bull drivers spun, and even a small moment for Verstappen led to a full 360-degree rotation. According to Marko, Verstappen is the only one who can still manage it, but Red Bull’s leadership knows the story is completely different for anyone else in the second seat.

Dunne’s FP1 appearance showed Marko just how much more “plug-and-play” the McLaren car is for a rookie driver compared to the RB21, which is always “on a knife edge”. Compounding this is the fact that the leap from Racing Bulls to Red Bull is enormous. The Racing Bulls car has a wide operating window and is forgiving to drive. According to the drivers, it’s one of the easiest cars on the grid, while the Red Bull is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing Team 

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

The contrast couldn’t be starker, as Alex Albon explained recently: “It’s also difficult because – maybe it’s my own interpretation of it – but the RB is quite a forgiving car. It’s quite well-balanced, it’s very stable, it gives you a lot of confidence. I think it’s naturally become that kind of car because they always have rookies in that car. So the foundations of the team is built on young drivers. And then the Red Bull is almost [the other] extreme. You’re going from one of the cars that’s most forgiving to the trickiest. And so you’re having to adapt quite a lot to two very different cars.”

And that adaptation — combined with facing a team-mate like Verstappen — has proven too much for everyone since Daniel Ricciardo. Pierre Gasly, Albon, Perez, Lawson, and Tsunoda have all struggled. Red Bull could add another name to that list, but the team leaders understand that doing so would be pointless. The car is the problem and, ironically, the Spielberg weekend — including Dunne’s run in the McLaren — made that clearer than ever.

It also underlines how dependent Red Bull currently is on Verstappen — and how concerning things could get if the Dutchman really does leave. The picture the Austrian GP has painted of a Red Bull team without Verstappen looked far from pretty…