Yuki Tsunoda Got Three Races Back. Now He's Watching Again

BAKU — Yuki Tsunoda had a race seat again. For three weekends. Then Red Bull put the regulars back.

Isack Hadjar, the Red Bull driver who missed Zandvoort, Monza, and Madrid with a wrist injury from summer training, was cleared on Tuesday. He had not raced since Hungary in July. Liam Lawson slides back to Racing Bulls. Tsunoda, who filled Lawson's seat, is reserve again.

Qualifying is today in Baku. The grand prix is Saturday, moved up a day so it doesn't land on Azerbaijan's Remembrance Day.

Then the calendar goes east: Sepang on October 2 to 4, Singapore October 9 to 11. Tsunoda will do that stretch from the garage, the weekends a lot of Asian American and Asian Canadian fans actually circled.

He finished 11th at Zandvoort after one practice in a 2026 car he had not driven. It was a sprint weekend. The team was running fifth in the constructors' fight.

He took 10th at Monza and a point. That finish landed harder than the position. He told Formula 1's Beyond the Grid podcast it felt closer to his first AlphaTauri points as a rookie than anything from the last three years. It was the first Sunday in a while, he said, that he and the team could actually enjoy.

Madrid was 14th, after first-corner contact. He has one championship point from the three starts. Unless the phone rings again, that was his last start of the year.

In July he told F1.com he was hungry to get back, and that leaving the paddock would cut him off from how Formula 1 actually moves. He stayed. That is why he was available when Lawson filled the Red Bull seat.

Reserve duty this weekend is the old job again: simulator, debrief, stay ready. The difference is he now has a 2026 stint on the sheet. If you watch qualifying today, Lawson has the Racing Bulls car. Tsunoda has a headset.

The 2027 seat is still the one he wants. "My primary focus is F1," he said last week. "I'm trying to be back. That's my target and I'm not thinking anything else."

Zhou Guanyu is doing a version of the same year at Cadillac, also watching Sundays without a race number.

Tsunoda already showed he can take a late call and score. The next proof has to be a seat that still has his name on it in March.