Red Bull hopeful voices ambition to replace Perez

Amid uncertainty over his future with Red Bull, Sergio Perez's seat is being eyed up by a rival on the grid, who has voiced his desire to step into the seat for the 2025 Formula 1 season.

Perez is out of contract at the end of the current campaign and entered the season under pressure after a challenging term last year.

The Mexican driver enjoyed a strong start alongside team-mate Max Verstappen before a lacklustre showing last time out at Imola saw him fail to advance into Q3 before driving to an eighth-place finish.

RB's Yuki Tsunoda, who is also out of contract at the end of the year, has admitted to having hopes over securing a promotion to the front-running team.

“Always as a driver, you want to be in the team that the car is performing well and obviously Red Bull has the best car in the grid,” Tsunoda told the Sky Sports F1 podcast.

“Especially when you're in the Red Bull family for such a long time, you always aim for a Red Bull car.

“So if I say I'm not aiming for a Red Bull car, that will be a lie. But at the same time, I’m also very happy with the RB car and I'm enjoying the progress we have had so far in this season.”

Tsunoda has enjoyed a successful start to the 2024 campaign, scoring four top-10 finishes in the opening rounds.

While he is pleased with how his season has commenced, Tsunoda admitted that he has not hosted many discussions with Red Bull over a promotion.

“As a team, last year we struggled in the first half of the season and now the amount of the difference I'm feeling in the car is a lot,” he said.

“So just for me [I’m] currently focusing on the performance, what I can do to keep extracting [pace] from the car and just always excited to see how much we can do.

“But obviously there's something, the story that maybe I can go to Red Bull or not, that would be great. 

“The truth is there's not much talk going on between Red Bull and myself. So just doing what I’m doing and see how it goes in the future.”