For Red Bull, the Emilia-Romagna GP was once again a race of extremes. On one hand, Max Verstappen secured a brilliant victory, but on the other, Yuki Tsunoda had to make up a lot of ground for a single World Championship point. After a massive crash in qualifying, the Japanese driver started from the pit lane, only to drive up to tenth place. Going forward, Tsunoda wants to stop playing the hero.
Yuki Tsunoda was – understandably – full of praise for the mechanics who had to repair his RB21 deep into the night. The Japanese driver ended his qualifying for the GP in Imola with a terrifying crash, in which his Red Bull car flew head over heels into the barriers. In the race, he managed to limit the damage by driving to the tenth place and thus securing one point. This is in stark contrast to the flawless victory of teammate Verstappen, who never relinquished the lead after a brilliant overtaking manoeuvre on Oscar Piastri.
‘I expect too much of myself’
“At least I’m glad I was able to give something back to the team,” Tsunoda began after the race, “especially considering the amount of work the mechanics put into the car overnight – that was a tremendous effort.” The Japanese driver benefited from a late retirement by Kimi Antonelli; with the Italian dropping out, he just made it into the points. “I’m glad I was able to give something back to the team,” he repeated. “At the same time, it was still a frustrating race after that qualifying. But well, it is what it is.”
“Honestly, the pace over one lap was quite good,” he added, somewhat hopefully. “Especially up to VT2, I was quite close to Max (Verstappen),” said Tsunoda. “That gave me quite a bit of confidence heading into qualifying, but that only made it worse. I probably had too high expectations of myself. I tried to play the hero in the first round of Q1, which in retrospect was unnecessary. Those are things where I need to take a step back and rethink. Next time, it definitely needs to be better.”
