Instead, the driver who he would place alongside the four-time World Champion is the most experienced driver in Red Bull’s fold not currently in the senior team line-up, Yuki Tsunoda.
Although Sergio Perez is under contract to remain Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate for F1 2025, the Mexican’s struggles for form this season have sparked speculation that Red Bull will look to replace him for next year.
Liam Lawson’s name was soon brought up as a potential candidate, after being drafted in at junior team VCARB after the dismissal of Daniel Ricciardo, while Franco Colapinto has also now emerged as a contender to join the Red Bull fold after impressing at Williams, with the prospect of slotting straight into the Red Bull mooted.
However, in the opinion of Coronel, Tsunoda is the best option Red Bull has to partner Verstappen in F1 2025.
Tsunoda made his F1 debut with the Red Bull junior squad in 2021 and has remained with the team since.
“It’s not Liam Lawson and not Franco Colapinto,” said Coronel on the RN365 podcast in regards to the ideal Verstappen Red Bull team-mate.
“Now put our Japanese [Yuki Tsunoda] in. He should just move from Visa Cash App RB through to Red Bull.
“He has the most experience. Everyone else will be slaughtered by Max. It wouldn’t be smart.
“And I understand everyone wants to see other new heroes, but it’s not going to work.
“Yuki is better than Colapinto and Lawson. Look at the results and the experience.”
Perez has joined a collection of Red Bull drivers to suffer as team-mate to Verstappen, Alex Albon having gone through similar struggles and Pierre Gasly before him.
And so Coronel is urging Red Bull not to repeat a past mistake with Lawson.
“The one who gets slaughtered the least is Yuki,” Coronel continued. “He has the experience and then it’s okay. If you have to send someone like Lawson away after five races, that makes no sense.
“Then you are going to make the same mistake they did with Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly. Then they do it again, it’s not going to work. Forget it, you’re sitting next to Max Verstappen and not next to anyone else. Then you have to have experience.”
Focusing on Colapinto, who has scored five points across his six race weekends since replacing Logan Sargeant, Sky F1 pundit Karun Chandhok also expressed his belief that joining Red Bull to race alongside Verstappen next season would not be a wise move for the Argentine.
“He’s clearly very quick, clearly very talented,” Chandhok said of Colapinto on the Sky F1 podcast.
“I think we’ll all admit, including Williams, that it’s been a bit of a surprise, because his junior formula record didn’t suggest he’s going to be as good as he has been, and maybe he is well suited to an F1 car or the style of driving, but I think it’d be a mistake to put him in a Red Bull.
“I think it’s too early. I think if they were talking about putting him in an RB, I think that’ll be a good, sensible choice and a career progression for him.
“I think if they put him in a Red Bull alongside Max, it could destroy him. I think it’d be too soon.
“The best choice or the best option is if Checo improves and stays there, that they don’t have to do anything, and they can stay status quo. But if that improvement is not coming, maybe they’re going to put Liam Lawson in and they put Franco in there [at VCARB].
“Because honestly, if you look at the run he’s had, it’s like a guy who has done the perfect job interview, right? He’s come there, made an impact, bang, quick straight away. Results [in] Singapore, Baku, amazing.
“But then as you’ve got into it and the races are unfolding, in Mexico, he was some way off Alex in qualifying, and Brazil, he was some way off Alex in qualifying, two big shunts – it’s still not the complete package in terms of his experience, I think.
“I would think even for himself and his own management, I’d probably say, ‘let’s think of the long term here’.
“And if there’s an option of RB instead of going to Red Bull, I think that would be better for him, and it’s probably a better choice for Red Bull to be making as well.”
