#18 Yuki Tsunoda - Racing Bulls/Red Bull
How the mighty - or perhaps the hopeful - have fallen. After years of campaigning for a promotion, Yuki finally got his wish, only to be tossed into the shark tank alongside Max Verstappen amid a brutal transition.
Any momentum he carried from his Racing Bulls days vanished as he struggled to bridge the massive gulf between his Saturday heroics and Sunday's harsh realities.
The defining blow came at Imola; a clumsy qualifying crash just as he received parity in car specs left him scavenging for scraps while his teammate feasted. A dismal points haul compared to the Dutchman suggests that being "fast enough for the junior team" isn't quite the same as being "Red Bull ready."
#17 Liam Lawson - Red Bull/Racing Bulls
Lawson’s Racing Bulls/Red Bull roundtrip was a confusing affair marked by a blend of brilliance and total anonymity. When the stars aligned - as they did in Austria and in Azerbaijan - the Kiwi looked every bit the future star.
However, those weekends were the exceptions rather than the rule. For the bulk of the year, he was comprehensively outpaced by Isack Hadjar, a rookie who consistently held the upper hand when the lights went green on Saturday.
It took some late-season mechanical soul-searching and a VCARB suspension overhaul to save his career. He’s survived to see 2026, but Liam is in dire need of actual, sustained results.
