Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo won't be the only star names representing Red Bull at a special F1 event in Germany later this year.
It had already been confirmed that on September 9, the famous Nurburgring Nordschleife venue will be hosting a 12-hour endurance race. The 'Red Bull Formula Nurburgring' event will also see young drivers and veterans take part in a series of demo runs, a prospect that will excite F1 fans from all generations.
Vettel, 35, will get back in the seat of the RB7 he drove to the 2011 title, the second of what proved to be four consecutive world championship wins. And he'll be joined by the 'Honey Badger', who is back at Christian Horner's team as a back up driver this year, and will get behind the wheel of the RB8 used by the team in 2012.
And now Yuki Tsunoda, who drives for Red Bull's sister team AlphaTauri, is set to join the party. In a released statement, the team confirmed the Japanese star will be driving a Honda NSX GT3 Evo at the show event.
"Yuki will complement the impressive line-up, including Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel with their F1 show runs," they said. "And he will become the youngest driver to drive around the Nurburgring Nordschleife."
Tsunoda himself added: "I've never driven at the Nurburgring before, so I'm really looking forward to the event in September. I can't wait to drive around it in my Honda NSX GT3 Evo, which is an incredible car and a proven race-winning machine at the highest level of GT3 competition."
And the 23-year-old admitted he'd only previously driven on the track virtually: "The Nordschleife is a legendary circuit," he continued. "I just experienced it on the Gran Turismo video game and already enjoyed it a lot.”
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The event marks the first time in 10 years an F1 car has graced the track at the Nordschleife. The legendary Michael Schumacher got behind the wheel of a Mercedes car in 2013, six years after Nick Heidfeld had previously done similar in a BMW Sauber in 2007.
Tsunoda has drive for Scuderia AlphaTauri for three years, but has thus far struggled in 2023. He's amassed just two points after two 10th placed finished in eight Grand Prix races.
In his debut 2021 campaign, he finished 14th in the standings on 32 points. He failed to match that the following year, totalling just 12 and languishing down in 17th.
