Montoya: Red Bull ‘politics’ could keep Tsunoda on 2026 grid

As Red Bull drags its feet on finalizing its 2026 driver line-ups, former Formula 1 race winner Juan Pablo Montoya has weighed in on the topic with a mixture of pragmatism and cynicism.

With Max Verstappen’s seat guaranteed at the senior team and Isack Hadjar likely to step up to the Milton Keynes-based outfit, three drivers – Liam Lawson, Yuki Tsunoda and Arvid Lindblad – are in contention for the two remaining seats at Racing Bulls.

Despite Tsunoda’s alarming deficit to Max Verstappen this season, the Colombian believes the Japanese driver could survive the cut for one reason only: internal “politics.”

If Marko Made the Decisions…

Speaking on the MontoyAS podcast, Montoya suggested that the Japanese driver’s survival hinges less on lap times and more on boardroom maneuvering.

“I think there is a small chance [he keeps his seat] because of politics, and I don’t want to talk about it here,” he said. “But it’s not so black and white because if I put it to you like this: if Helmut made the decisions, I would say that 90 per cent he would be out.”

He went on to explain the shifting power dynamic inside the energy-drink empire.

“But right now things have changed a bit; they are a little more political. Red Bull Austria, it seems to me, wants to have a little more control over what is happening in the team,” Montoya explained.

“So now, how the decisions are made and the things that happen are going to change a bit, especially because there are three seats.”

In Montoya’s view, the internal roadmap is already sketched.

“Lindblad goes up for sure; it’s whether Yuki leaves or whether Liam Lawson leaves. Theoretically, that is the plan.”

Performance vs. Politics

By the numbers, Tsunoda’s case is hard to defend. He has scored only 28 points, while Verstappen has raked in 341 points in the same machinery – a performance gap Montoya openly acknowledges.

Yet he also believes the Japanese driver has done “better than Lawson would have” and shown improvement after being thrust back into the seat mid-season.

“If you look, Yuki has done a good job compared to what Lawson could have done and what everyone in that Red Bull car has done until now,” he said. “So the work Yuki is doing is not ideal, but he has improved.

“If they give Yuki one more year, I think Yuki will be able to start aligning things. So it wouldn’t be so logical to take him out. And Lawson and Hadjar are finishing in the points, both of them.”

But even Montoya admits that logic isn’t exactly steering the ship.

If he had the final say? He wouldn’t promote Lindblad yet, keeping Tsunoda and Lawson for another year. But he’s under no illusion about what’s most likely.

“Where Helmut doesn’t have 100 per cent control of the decisions, everything is not so clear,” he said, noting the new layers of influence within Red Bull’s decision-making.

• Read also: Montoya says harmony between McLaren’s drivers ‘will sour'

He argues this power-sharing dynamic has created “a lot of politics and everything.”

And that, in his view, is both the complication – and Tsunoda’s potential chance to survive to fight another year.

“On one hand, I think Yuki still has very strong political ties within Red Bull that can keep him there, and on the other hand, everyone still has a bit of a chance there. If they were to take someone out, the most probable would be Yuki.”

Montoya’s verdict is simple: purely on merit, Tsunoda is the obvious casualty.

But Red Bull, he suggests, isn’t making calls purely on merit anymore. And in a landscape where politics can trump performance, the driver with the weakest results might just cling to a 2026 seat after all.

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