F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Tsunoda 'not sure what's happening' after Sprint quali stumble

Yuki Tsunoda was left confused and frustrated after today's Sprint qualifying session at Shanghai International Circuit which saw him miss the cut at the end of the first round.

The Visa Cash App RB driver will line up on the back row of Saturday's Sprint grid leaving him with little chance of making it into the top eight for points in the 19-lap race.

The Japanese driver - who has taken points in the last two Grand Prix outings in Australia and Japan - wasn't able to explain why things had gone awry for him on Friday.

“I struggled with the balance and grip in general from FP1," he said after the session. "Even for Sprint qualifying, we tried different things, but I couldn’t put it all together.

"Not sure what’s happening there but it definitely was not easy today," he added. "It’s not because of the weather and the general track conditions, I just could not achieve more.

"I haven’t struggled this much so far," he admitted. "It’s strange, but there are still sessions to go, so we’ll continue collecting the data."

“Not a great day for us obviously, and certainly not what we’ve become accustomed to qualifying this car," was the honest view of RB racing director Alan Permane.

"It was apparent from the first session this morning that we were struggling a little bit for speed," he said. While the RB engineers are unable to make changes to the car under parc ferme conditions, not all is lost.

Once the Sprint is over the team will be able to work on the car before qualifying for the Grand Prix. "We’ll do the Sprint tomorrow and then obviously we’ve got a chance to change the cars," commented Permane.

"There’ll be a lot of work going on tonight with the engineers here and back in Italy and the UK because we have an opportunity to adjust the setup for the qualifying session on Saturday afternoon.”

"Qualifying tomorrow is very important," agreed Tsunoda. ""Hopefully we can find something until then. Let’s see how it goes.”

While Tsunoda will start from 19th place on the Sprint grid, his under-fire team mate Daniel Ricciardo will be a few rows ahead in 14th. While not the greatest success, it was certainly enough to give Ricciardo a boost.

“It’s one of those days where P14 is not an obvious result to get excited about, but personally I think it was a much better day because we hit the ground running this morning and were in the top 10.

"It’s close - not somewhere where we’re going to be particularly over the moon, but on our personal little path that we’re on it was a positive day.

"We knew getting into Q3 would have been tough, but the feeling on track was definitely a bit better so there's some encouragement from that," he noted.

"Looking at tomorrow, the Sprint is certainly another chance to come through the field and have a little bit of a battle. It’s a circuit where you can overtake because there are some good opportunities. I’m really looking forward to that.”

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

Recent Posts

Sao Paulo GP qualifying postponed after repeated delays

The FIA has postponed Saturday’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix qualifying session due to adverse weather…

14 mins ago

McLaren: Team orders always ‘make life difficult for ourselves’

McLaren's successful 1-2 finish in the Brazilian Sprint race came with a dose of complexity,…

3 hours ago

Verstappen demoted to P4 following VSC infringement in Sprint

Max Verstappen has been demoted from third to fourth in the final standings of Saturday’s…

3 hours ago

Norris thanks Piastri for handing Sprint win, but not ‘proud’

Lando Norris secured victory in Saturday's Sprint event in Sao Paulo thanks to a McLaren…

5 hours ago

São Paulo GP: Norris handed sprint win by Piastri

McLaren clinched a valuable 1-2 sweep of the São Paulo sprint race, with polesitter Oscar…

6 hours ago

2024 São Paulo Grand Prix - Sprint Race results

Full results from the Sprint race for the São Paulo Grand Prix at São Paulo,…

6 hours ago