Head-to-head · season 2026

YukiTsunodaRacing Bulls vs MaxVerstappenRed Bull Racing

VER leads the grade duel 2–1 — across the 14 rounds both were rated in, the car stripped out of the equation.

VS
#13The Index · 7.78
P23DI championship · 8 pts
0best-of-race
P20official · 1 pts
#1The Index · 9.88
P1DI championship · 157 pts
2best-of-race
P6official · 133 pts

Yuki Tsunoda vs Max Verstappen: who is driving better in 2026?

the verdict, from the numbers

Yuki Tsunoda drives for Racing Bulls, Max Verstappen for Red Bull Racing, so the raw results are not comparable — everything below has car performance taken out of it. Max Verstappen leads on The Index, 9.88 to 7.78 — P1 against P13, a gap of 2.10 of a grade point. Round by round, Max Verstappen has out-driven the other in 2 of 3 races where both were graded. Yuki Tsunoda's clearest advantage is Tyre Management — 9.70 against 7.95. Max Verstappen takes Race Pace back the other way, 9.78 to 7.13. They are effectively inseparable on Cleanliness. In the DriverIndex Championship — the same season paid on the official points scale, but on driver merit — Max Verstappen sits P1 on 157 points to Yuki Tsunoda's P23 on 8. Officially they stand P6 and P20.

The nine dimensions

season averages, mirrored — the longer bar wins the metric
7.96 A Overdelivery 10.00
7.13 B Race Pace 9.78
9.84 C Consistency 9.50
7.55 D Attack & Defence 9.60
9.70 E Tyre Management 7.95
6.00 F Qualifying 8.64
7.47 G Race Start 7.27
8.36 I Cleanliness 8.36

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Race grade, round by round

gaps = not classified