Yuki Tsunoda backs himself to take the fight to Max Verstappen if he were promoted to the Red Bull seat alongside the Dutchman.

Speaking to RacingNews365 in an exclusive interview, the RB driver shared his belief that he would not “make life easy” for the triple-world drivers’ champion, despite the 26-year-old having crushed his team-mates of late.

“I think I can fight hard with him,” the Japanese driver contends when asked for his thoughts on the hypothetical scenario. “I won’t make life easy for him, for sure.

“Obviously, he’s very fast and he’s very consistent. So drivers’ championship-wise, I wouldn’t say I have massive confidence that I can straight away beat him in the drivers’ championship from the first year.”

Having graduated to F1 in 2021 with AlphaTauri, Tsunoda has spent his entire four-year F1 career racing for Red Bull’s second team.

Fast but inconsistent over his first couple of seasons, the Japanese driver took a step forward in the early part of 2023, handily out-performing the over-matched Nyck de Vries, managing to squeeze results out of an under-developed car.

He bettered Daniel Ricciardo, who was jettisoned in mid-season, towards the end of the year as the AlphaTauri improved and carried that momentum into the current campaign.