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AlphaTauri Formula 1 team principal Franz Tost has warned that Yuki Tsunoda needs to become “more disciplined” after being hit with a penalty for ignoring yellow flags in second Italian Grand Prix practice.
Tsunoda came into the weekend facing a 10-place grid drop after accumulating five reprimands this season, with the latest for driving with his seatbelts unfastened during the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.
Not slowing for yellow flags at Monza led to him being hit with a further three-place penalty and also earned him two licence penalty points, taking him to eight for the past 12 months.
While Tsunoda already had a back-of-the-grid penalty thanks to taking additional power unit components, Tost was unimpressed with the FP2 error.
“Look to the qualifying in Zandvoort, look to FP1 here in Monza,” said Tost when asked about Tsunoda’s progress. “In the car he is doing a really good job.
“He has just to get under control his emotions and he must be more disciplined because to ignore a yellow flag in FP2 is not clever.
“I understand that it’s difficult in qualifying, or maybe sometimes in the race, but in a free practice session you in any way have to accept yellow flags and have to react in the correct way, which means you have to slow down.”
Tsunoda’s seatbelt incident happened at Zandvoort when he stopped on track with a suspected loose wheel before being told to resume and return to the pits. He then rejoined after a tyre change but was immediately told to stop once a differential problem was confirmed by the team.
That led to baseless suggestions – and even some suspicions in the paddock – that this was timed to trigger a virtual safety car period that allowed Red Bull stablemate Max Verstappen to pit and retain the lead.
Tost said he didn’t understand the reaction to what happened and has explained how it played out.
“It was a surprise because I don’t think that we did anything wrong,” said Tost.
“We were frustrated that Yuki could not finish the race because he could have scored points and this differential failure was absolutely a surprise. We didn’t have this problem beforehand. And therefore I don’t understand the reactions.
“Yuki came in lap 43 for his second stop, we put on the hard tyres and when he left the pits he immediately said a tyre came loose. The engineer reacted correctly, telling him stop the car.
“We checked the data in the meantime and we detected that all the tyres were tightened, there was no problem. Therefore, we said to Yuki, ‘please come back because we want to change the tyres once more’.
“He stopped and the tyres were dirty in the sand and the temperature from the tyres came down. He came in, we changed the tyres and when he went out once more we saw on the data that the rear differential was broken and this was also what Yuki felt already with the first pitstop.
“The pressure from the differential came down step by step, therefore it was difficult to detect it immediately after the first pitstop. And the problem was quite simple.
“Maybe to answer questions already now, we had no communication with Red Bull Racing during the race. Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing do not need our help, they win by themselves and we need every point ourself.
“Therefore it was never programmed that we stop a car during the race because Yuki was in a good position to score points.”
Tsunoda was also a topic addressed by Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto at Monza ahead of free practice today.
He apologised for referring to Tsunoda by the “bad joke” nickname ‘Tsunami’, which has led to criticism in Japan given sensitivities connected to the devastation caused by the Tohoku tsunami in 2011 that caused almost 20,000 confirmed deaths.
“Certainly, I need to apologise,” said Binotto.
“It was a mistake by using that word. It was no intention to do anything wrong and very close to the victims, which I honestly realise.
“I think Tsunoda is a fantastic driver. He’s a great man and we’ve got a good relationship.
“And that’s a way that we simply call him in a way to…it’s a simple joke, but it’s a bad joke.”
