Yuki Tsunoda said he knows his first year in the sport created an “image” problem as he was once again overlooked for the Red Bull seat.

Tsunoda has seen Liam Lawson leapfrog him up the Red Bull pecking order and the Japanese driver believes his “image” is partly the reason behind the snub.

Yuki Tsunoda acknowledges ‘image’ problem

Tsunoda’s first season was one of crashes and loud-mouth rants and it is an impression that has stuck in some corners, even if Tsuonda has matured past those days.

The 24-year-old believes that image of him played some part in him missing out on the Red Bull seat with Lawson moving up to replace Sergio Perez after just 11 races.

“I think that part of it is kind of my fault because I wasn’t really able to perform straight away in the first year,” Tsunoda told Motorsport.com. “It creates a bit of an image of who I am.

“[In 2024], even though I was performing well, I feel like didn’t I get really get credit as much as probably other drivers get, but it is what it is. I just naturally, just keep what I’m doing and performing well and just prove them wrong.

“I just try to give them fewer excuses or reasons why I am not in the seat. So, I just focus on what I can control those things other than that, just accept the situation. I’m sure I can do a better job than what they are thinking.”

Tsunoda has been at the Faenza team for four seasons, making him one of their longest serving drivers, but there has never been any real indication that Red Bull were considering him for the top seat.

Heading into the final year of his deal and Honda’s last with Red Bull, it is expected that Tsunoda will depart the team at the end of this season.

More on how Yuki Tsunoda stacks up at Racing Bulls

F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates

F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

The Sagamihara native, though, believes he has improved since his 2021 debut and picked out his communication as an area to note.

“I would say the communications side has improved, mainly my language on the radio,” Tsunoda said.

“The calmness, I would say, is also definitely improved, more technical feedback, more focused. I can definitely feel the improvement throughout the year and I’m very happy with it. What I have to improve more is still the technical feedback, especially the amount of feedback you can give in the race, I think I definitely can say more, and sometimes it’s not really consistent.

“For us it was more difficult to consistently show our performance. Even though you have a good performance, sometimes the car’s performance doesn’t really follow that.

“But still, I’m pretty happy with the consistency so far. I always say I could have done a couple of races much better, but I showed I’m pretty consistent.

“I started really well, and I was in the points pretty consistently, because also the car was pretty good. At some point, and we weren’t able to improve our car with upgrades and actually Haas and other competitors started to overtake our car performance.”

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