TREMAYNE: Japanese drivers have a rich history in F1 – but can Yuki Tsunoda grab his chance and be the best of them all?

They say that a week is a long time in politics but if you’re Liam Lawson, when it came this week to his demotion from Red Bull, two races counted as no time at all.

For Yuki Tsunoda, however, the New Zealander’s misfortune opens the door ahead of his own home Grand Prix and represents the biggest opportunity in a career that has revealed the 24-year-old from Sagamihara to be an aggressive and feisty racer in the Takuma Sato mould.

READ MORE: Tsunoda to replace Lawson at Red Bull from Japanese GP as New Zealander drops down to Racing Bulls

While the controversial reshuffling has lit up all the racing headlines in the last few days, there is another little-known Japanese-related factoid in the country’s strong history in the sport.

It’s 50 years this year since Hiroshi Fushida, having become the first Japanese driver to race at Le Mans (with Sigma Automotive in 1973), became the first to qualify for a Grand Prix.

Heroically, the man from Kyoto did so in the unloved Maki F101C, though he did not subsequently start the Dutch GP after the engine blew up.

And while Yuki’s promotion to the team which has won six Constructors’ World Championships, thus giving him the most prestigious chance to date for a Japanese national, the country has fielded some strong competitors in that half century – with no fewer than 19 to choose from.

While it might fairly be said that many of them – Fushida; Masahiro Hasemi; Masami Kuwashima; Noritake Takahara; Kazuyoshi Hoshino; Kunimitsu Takahashi; Naoki Hattori; Toshio Suzuki; Shinji Nakano; Toranosuke Takagi; Yuji Ide; and Sakon Yamamoto – did not, in cricket parlance, trouble the scorers, Satoru Nakijima; Aguri Suzuki; Ukyo Katayama; Takuma Sato, Kazuki Nakajima, Kamui Kobayashi and Yuki have all had their moments in the rising sun.

A Honda protégé, Satoru was Japan’s first full-time racer and a midfield runner as team mate to Ayrton Senna and then Nelson Piquet at Team Lotus, then ran well at times for Tyrrell.

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Most notably he exactly matched Nelson’s qualifying pace in Suzuka in 1988 despite the death of his mother that morning, and starred in the rain in Adelaide in 1989 where he came from the back of the field to fourth and set fastest lap along the way.

I can still see the huge beam on Aguri’s face as he stood proudly on the podium in his home race in 1990 – the first Japanese driver ever to attain such a finish – after he had brought his Larrousse Lola home third behind the Benettons of Nelson Piquet and Roberto Moreno. Later he would run his own Honda-backed Super Aguri team from 2006 to 2008.

Who could forget the way Ukyo’s head would rock from side-to-side like a windscreen wiper as he was a top-six runner for Tyrrell, scoring three points finishes in 1994?

His ambition even then was to climb mountains, and while the F1 summit eluded him, he successfully mastered challenging peaks such as Cho Oyu; Manaslu; Mont Blanc; Kilimanjaro; Elbrus; Denali; Aconcagua; and Vinson Massif; and in 2009 survived an attempt to scale Mount Fuji in which two companions died.

READ MORE: From rookie rage to an ‘outstanding’ all-rounder – Tsunoda’s rollercoaster ride to a Red Bull seat

Takuma Sato was a feisty little racer, very much like Yuki is today, fuelled by an uncrushable spirit and determination.

At times he was inconsistent and hot-headed, but I have never forgotten his third-place podium finish for BAR Honda in the US in 2004, or the driving lesson he dished out to Fernando Alonso in Montreal in 2007 when, as Lewis Hamilton won for the first time, Fernando was condemned to an odd seventh, five seconds behind Taku’s Super Aguri… He would later win the Indianapolis 500 in 2017 and 2020.

I never quite figured out Kazuki Nakijima’s motivation. Japan’s first second-generation driver, he was supported by Toyota where his father Satoru was a Honda man, and in 2008 as team mate to Nico Rosberg chez Williams, he scored a sixth, two sevenths and two eighths, but it was hard to know how much his heart was in it.

There was zero doubt about Kamui Kobayashi’s passion for F1. It’s always one of those things with drivers from certain parts of the world, most especially from Japan, that we see a newcomer and saddle them with the thought that they “could just be the best yet” from their particular birthplace.

LISTEN: Japanese hero Kamui Kobayashi on his racing career – and his part in Tsunoda’s rise to F1

Certainly, Kamui had to bear that moniker in his days with Sauber. He was a tough fighter, as Japanese drivers so often are, and like Suzuki and Sato, he would bring honour to his nation with a podium finish for Sauber in the 2012 Japanese GP.

He won Le Mans with Toyota in 2021, and two FIA World Endurance Championship titles in 2019-20 and 2021, and today manages Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe’s FIA WEC programme.

Which brings us back to Yuki. If you look at his results, ironically his best finishes came in his debut year in 2021 with AlphaTauri, when he was ninth on his debut in Bahrain, sixth in Hungary and a decent fourth in Abu Dhabi.

His fighting spirit is never in doubt, however, and it has often led in the past to fiery outbursts in the cockpit which it seems made Red Bull nervous about promoting him to the big sister team.

READ MORE: ‘We have a duty of care to protect and develop Liam’ – Horner opens up on decision to replace Lawson at Red Bull

There are still moments when things get the better of his equanimity, but isn’t that an indication of his innate determination? He’s also been quite unlucky at times either with incidents, car reliability or team tactics. But you know that he will always give his best.

That has assuaged Red Bull’s uncertainty, which was behind the decision late last year not to promote him but to opt for Lawson to sit alongside Verstappen for the 2025 season.

One might be tempted to ask why Red Bull didn’t give Liam the Japanese race as a final arbiter, given that Suzuka is a track with which he is totally familiar after his racing in Super Formula, but then again Yuki is surely a Suzuka expert too, and the team will be mindful of the need to have their second driver earning crucial Constructors’ points after losing the lucrative title last year for the first time since 2021.

So what can be expected from Yuki at home next week?

WATCH: Lawson out, Tsunoda in – Laura Winter and Lawrence Barretto discuss Red Bull’s driver call

Part of the problem from the outside is that Max is such a capable driver that he makes the RB21 look better than it is, just as at times last year he did with the RB20 when it was going through its awkward phase.

Doubtless within Red Bull they now have a fair idea what needs to be changed, especially after the pow-wow with Max in Milton Keynes last week. It doesn’t seem to particularly like the soft or medium Pirellis but behaves better on the hards.

So how will Yuki acclimatise to it? Will his press-on style suit the car better than either Liam or their predecessor Sergio Perez, who had the opposite chance to the New Zealander in terms of the number of races he was allowed in the past two seasons?

Undoubtedly, there will be a massive weight of expectation on Yuki’s shoulders, not just because of it being his home race, but because the drive alongside Max in such a strong team effectively gives a Japanese driver their best-ever chance to show just what they can do.

READ MORE: ‘It’s tough’ – Lawson shares first message after Red Bull seat swap with emotional social media post

Is the second Red Bull a poisoned chalice, rather like the second Lotus used to be in Jimmy Clark’s days, when Colin Chapman seemed only to heed what his star driver had to say rather than number twos such as Trevor Taylor or Peter Arundell?

In so many ways that was understandable, just as one can see why Red Bull engineers will always be more prepared to listen more to Max, with all his Championship-winning skills, than to a young driver who can’t get close to his pace.

Looking at more recent history, it's also not dissimilar to 1994 when Michael Schumacher’s preference for a Benetton that was ‘all on the nose’ did not suit team mates JJ Lehto or Jos Verstappen.

So much will depend on how quickly Yuki can figure out the best way to charm speed out of his difficult new machine, and whether his driving style matches Max’s sufficiently to give him the chance of unlocking similar performance.

READ MORE: ‘He’s not become the worst driver in two races’ – Ex-Red Bull junior Alguersuari sympathises with Lawson after Racing Bulls demotion

Red Bull desperately need a second points scorer, somebody who can ride shotgun for Max as Sergio once used to.

But there is another imperative that is much more personal to Yuki. It’s not just his career at Red Bull that is a stake here, but his F1 career itself.

Because it’s unlikely, unless he really stars, that there will be a future for him at Red Bull as they switch to Ford power next year, and there is unlikely to be an opening at Aston Martin when Honda become their engine supplier.

And while Honda is believed to be seeking a second team, possible candidate Williams is unlikely to want to lose either Alex Albon or Carlos Sainz; Racing Bulls will go Ford; Alpine is going the Mercedes route; Haas is building a relationship with Toyota, alongside Ferrari; Sauber will become Audi and Cadillac will have Ferrari power units…

So can Yuki emulate countrymen Aguri, Taku and Kamui and finish on the podium at home?

Or, if he struggles like his immediate predecessor (worse still, should a Liam Lawson determined to prove himself outshine him in a car that suits him better) will the alarm bells really start sounding in Red Bull’s technical department?

And what will Red Bull do if the new man in the cockpit struggles like the man he's replaced?

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