Red Bull's Tsunoda is the latest in a long line of Japanese drivers seeking F1 success

SUZUKA, Japan (AP) — Yuki Tsunoda finally has his promotion at Red Bull. That was difficult enough, elevated to the top team last week as Liam Lawson was demoted to Red Bull's No. 2 Formula 1 team — Racing Bulls — after failing to score points in the season's first two races.

Delivering will be even tougher as Tsunoda joins a long list of Japanese drivers with varying degrees of success in F1. His first Grand Prix for Red Bull is on Sunday in Japan.

Tsunoda faces pressure before adoring home fans, is another Japanese driver trying to crack through, and bears the weight of racing alongside four-time F1 champion Max Verstappen.

What advice has Red Bull team principal Christian Horner given him?

“Be close as much as possible to Max,” Tsunoda said Thursday at the Suzuka track. He described as “brutal” not being chosen initially by Red Bull for this season, but looked relaxed taking question about this abrupt promotion.

“I'm not saying I'm confident that I can perform straight away like Max,” he added. But he said he was confident he could produce well compared with “other drivers” Red Bull might have chosen.

Lawson also appeared relaxed, smiling as he took questions about his demotion.

"It's something I wasn't expecting,” Lawson said. “It's something that obviously is not my decision and for me it's about making the best of it.”

Lawson attributed part of doing poorly in his first two races with Red Bull to unfamiliar tracks in Australia and China. He'd been hoping to prove himself in Japan, where he drove last season in F1.

This time it will be with Racing Bulls and not Red Bull.

“This is what I was looking forward to from the start, to be honest,” he said, referring to the Suzuka circuit in central Japan. "To a track that I've been to before and just have a proper sort of preparation. It's a track we all like a drivers.”

This is Tsunoda's fifth season in F1, and he needs to deliver points for Red Bull. His best career finish was fourth place in Abu Dhabi in 2021. He's finished out of the points with Racing Bulls in the first two Grand Prix races this season, but placed sixth in the sprint race almost two weeks ago in China.

Red Bull's car this weekend will run with a white paint job, a tribute to automaker Honda. Verstappen has won four consecutive titles with Honda power. This is Red Bull's last season with Honda, moving next year to Ford. Honda moves to power Aston Martin next season.

This is his best chance, and Tsunoda will have to excel to stay with Red Bull. Not just for this season, but for next.

Almost 20 Japanese drivers have competed and none has won an F1 race. Japanese have reached the podium only three times in F1. And all were third-place finishes.

Aguri Suzuki was the first to reach the podium, finishing third in the 1990 Japanese GP.

Kamui Kobayashi was third in the 2012 Japanese Grand Prix driving with Sauber and has scored more points in F1 than any Japanese driver.

Takuma Sato managed a third in the 2004 U.S. Grand Prix. He is also a two-time winner of the Indianapolis 500.

McLaren has won the first two races — Lando Norris in Australia and Oscar Piastri in China — in a field that looks tightly bunched.

Norris leads the driver standings with 44 points, followed by Verstappen with 36 and George Russell of Mercedes with 35. Piastri is one point back with 34.

Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, who joined Ferrari this season after departing Mercedes, has only nine points. He was 10th in Australia and was disqualified in China following postrace scrutineering. His best result so far is a win in the sprint race in China.

Hamilton has won five times in Japan, and his Ferrari team has vowed to fix the mistakes that saw Hamilton and teammate Charles Leclerc disqualified in China.

AP Formula 1: https://apnews.com/hub/formula-one

Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda of Japan responds to a journalist's question during a news conference at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, central Japan, Thursday, April 3, 2025, ahead Sunday's Japanese Formula One Grand Prix race. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)

Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda of Japan, center, flanked by Kick Sauber driver Nico Hulkenberg of Germany, left, and Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc of Monaco, responds to a journalist's question during a news conference at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, central Japan, Thursday, April 3, 2025, ahead Sunday's Japanese Formula One Grand Prix race. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)

Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda of Japan responds to a journalist's question during a news conference at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, central Japan, Thursday, April 3, 2025, ahead Sunday's Japanese Formula One Grand Prix race. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)

FILE - RB driver Yuki Tsunoda of Japan talks at a press conference during a Formula One pre-season test at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain, Friday, Feb. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic, File)

FILE - RB driver Yuki Tsunoda of Japan, celebrates his third place after the qualifying session ahead of the Brazilian Formula One Grand Prix at the Interlagos race track, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Ettore Chiereguini, File)

Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda of Japan performs a demonstration run during an event in Tokyo, ahead of the Japanese Formula 1 Grand Prix, Wednesday, April 2, 2025.(Kyodo News via AP)

Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda of Japan performs a demonstration run during an event in Tokyo, ahead of the Japanese Formula 1 Grand Prix, Wednesday, April 2, 2025.(Kyodo News via AP)

Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda of Japan smiles during a press conference in Tokyo, ahead of the Japanese Formula 1 Grand Prix, Wednesday, April 2, 2025.(Kyodo News via AP)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Protesters for and against the Trump administration's latest immigration crackdown clashed in Minneapolis on Saturday as the governor's office announced that National Guard troops had been mobilized and stood ready to assist state law enforcement, though they were not yet deployed to city streets.

There have been protests every day since the Department of Homeland Security ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers.

A large group of protesters turned out in downtown Minneapolis and confronted a much smaller group of people attending an anti-Somali and pro-Immigration and Customs Enforcement rally. They chased the pro-ICE group away and forced at least one member to take off a shirt they deemed objectionable.

Jake Lang, who organized the anti-Islam and pro-ICE demonstration, appeared to be injured as he left the scene, with bruises and scrapes on his head. He said via social media beforehand that he intended to “burn a Quran” on the steps of City Hall, but it was not clear if he carried out that plan.

Lang was previously charged with assaulting an officer with a baseball bat, civil disorder and other crimes before receiving clemency as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for Jan. 6 defendants last year. Lang recently announced that he is running for U.S. Senate in Florida.

In Minneapolis, snowballs and water balloons were also thrown before an armored police van and heavily equipped city police arrived.

“We’re out here to show Nazis and ICE and DHS and MAGA you are not welcome in Minneapolis,” protester Luke Rimington said. “Stay out of our city, stay out of our state. Go home.”

The state guard said in a statement that it had been “mobilized” by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to support the Minnesota State Patrol “to assist in providing traffic support to protect life, preserve property, and support the rights of all Minnesotans to assemble peacefully.”

Maj. Andrea Tsuchiya, a spokesperson for the guard, said it was “staged and ready” but yet to be deployed.

The announcement came more than a week after Walz, a frequent critic and target of Trump, told the guard to be ready to support law enforcement in the state.

During the daily protests, demonstrators have railed against masked immigration officers pulling people from homes and cars and other aggressive tactics. The operation in the deeply liberal Twin Cities has claimed at least one life: Renee Good, a U.S. citizen and mother of three, was shot by an ICE officer during a Jan. 7 confrontation.

On Friday a federal judge ruled that immigration officers cannot detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who are not obstructing authorities, including while observing officers during the Minnesota crackdown.

During a news conference Saturday, a man who fled civil war in Liberia as a child said he has been afraid to leave his Minneapolis home since being released from an immigration detention center following his arrest last weekend.

Video of federal officers breaking down Garrison Gibson's front door with a battering ram Jan. 11 become another rallying point for protesters who oppose the crackdown.

Gibson, 38, was ordered to be deported, apparently because of a 2008 drug conviction that was later dismissed. He has remained in the country legally under what’s known as an order of supervision. After his recent arrest, a judge ruled that federal officials did not give him enough notice that his supervision status had been revoked.

Then Gibson was taken back into custody for several hours Friday when he made a routine check-in with immigration officials. Gibson’s cousin Abena Abraham said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told her White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ordered the second arrest.

The White House denied the account of the re-arrest and that Miller had anything to do with it.

Gibson was flown to a Texas immigration detention facility but returned home following the judge's ruling. His family used a dumbbell to keep their damaged front door closed amid subfreezing temperatures before spending $700 to fix it.

“I don’t leave the house,” Gibson said at a news conference.

DHS said an “activist judge” was again trying to stop the deportation of “criminal illegal aliens.”

“We will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.

Gibson said he has done everything he was supposed to do: “If I was a violent person, I would not have been out these past 17 years, checking in."

Associated Press writers Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, Josh Boak in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed.

Garrison Gibson, a Liberian man who has lived in the U.S. for around three decades, shows reporters his shirt reading “Immigrants make America great” during a news conference Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

A Jake Lang supporter clashes with counterprotesters the March Against Minnesota Fraud rally near Minneapolis City Hall, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Jake Lang, center, who organized the protest March Against Minnesota Fraud, clutches his head as he leaves the rally near Minneapolis City Hall, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

A Jake Lang supporter bleeds from his head as he is chased away by pro-immigration protesters Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

A pro-immigration protester lifts up Jake Lang's vest after an altercation at the March Against Minnesota Fraud rally near Minneapolis City Hall, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

ADDS IDENTIFICATION: Garrison Gibson becomes emotional as he is arrested by federal immigration officers Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

ADDS IDENTIFICATION: Teyana Gibson Brown, second from left, wife of Garrison Gibson, reacts after federal immigration officers arrested Garrison Gibson, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Federal immigration officers prepare to enter a home to make an arrest after an officer used a battering ram to break down a door Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Garrison Gibson, a Liberian man who has lived in the U.S. for around three decades, shows a photo of his arrest on a t-shirt as he speaks with reporters during a news conference Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)

Garrison Gibson, a Liberian man who has lived in the U.S. for around three decades, speaks with reporters during a news conference Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)