Yuki Tsunoda (file photo, 2025 season). Photo: Liauzu, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
A cancelled test is a strange thing to build a story on, so start with what can be checked. Honda’s own October 20 release marking its 500th Grand Prix at Austin never mentions Yuki Tsunoda or IndyCar. Neither does IndyCar’s October 21 Inside Line column. No official channel we could find confirms an IndyCar evaluation for Tsunoda with Meyer Shank Racing, or that one was called off. Until Honda, the team or Tsunoda says so on the record, treat both as unverified.
The rumor is still worth taking seriously, because the problem underneath it is real and fully documented. We looked at the timing earlier in our look at the Tsunoda-to-IndyCar rumor. Here is the part that matters now.
What is actually on the record
Red Bull moved Tsunoda out of its race seat after 2025 and made him test and reserve driver for both Red Bull and Racing Bulls in 2026, with Isack Hadjar taking the car. Laurent Mekies called it a very difficult decision and said he expects Tsunoda to get another chance. In March, Tsunoda told Formula 1’s own website he has not given up on a race seat and would rather stay in F1 than race elsewhere.
Red Bull has since kept Hadjar on the books, as we covered when Red Bull signed him for 2027. That is one door closing quietly.
Honda’s F1 influence runs through one team
Honda is in F1 as a works partner of Aston Martin, supplying the RA626H power unit since 2026. HRC president Koji Watanabe has described the first-year goal as one unified team structure, not a customer relationship. That is the analysis worth sitting with: a partner still bedding in a new power unit is not obviously the party that decides who sits in Aston Martin’s cars, and the team has its own headaches, including a pit-lane start for Stroll in Austin.
Put plainly, Tsunoda’s Honda history is a relationship, not a lever. At Red Bull, Honda is no longer the engine partner. At Aston Martin, the seats are not obviously Honda’s to hand out. That leaves IndyCar as the one place a Honda-supported evaluation would actually mean something, which is exactly why the rumor keeps sticking.
The Cadillac angle
Cadillac lists Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as its 2026 drivers, Colton Herta as test driver and Zhou Guanyu as reserve. Its site names no 2027 lineup, and in Austin team principal Marcin Budkowski declined to discuss 2027 contracts, which we broke down in his non-answer on Pérez and Bottas. A declined question is not a vacancy. It is also not a denial.
What to watch
Three things settle this. First, any on-the-record word from Honda, HRC or Meyer Shank on a test, held or cancelled. Second, whether Cadillac names its 2027 drivers. Third, whether Red Bull keeps the reserve title on Tsunoda’s 2027 paperwork. An IndyCar run would be a hedge, not a plan, for a driver who says he wants F1. The tell is not a test. It is an entry list.
Lead image: Yuki Tsunoda (file photo, 2025 season). Photo: Liauzu, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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