Tsunoda faces grid penalty at Monza after fifth reprimand in 2022

Yuki Tsunoda has received his fifth reprimand of the year. The stewards deemed the AlphaTauri driver to have driven in an unsafe manner during the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort and reprimanded him for the incident. For Tsunoda this means bad news: if a driver accumulates five reprimands in a Formula One season, this results in a ten-place grid penalty.

Tsunoda gets fifth reprimand of the season

The reprimand is not so much related to the tyre problem Tsunoda reported, but to the fact that the driver was already unbuckling his seatbelt before making his way to the pits. During his stop, the mechanics could be seen working in the cockpit on re-tightening the seatbelt. After Tsunoda stopped his car for the second time because he still felt something was wrong, his team concluded that there was a problem with the differential.

It marks the fifth reprimand of the season for Tsunoda, who now faces a grid penalty at Monza. The Japanese driver received his fourth reprimand of the year at the Monaco Grand Prix in May, and has since survived without another one. In Zandvoort, however, it happened again.

The sporting regulations state that in the event of five reprimands, a driver will receive a grid penalty at the same event, or at the next if the last reprimand was given during the race. In four out of five cases, the offence must have been committed while driving. In Zandvoort this was not the case, but in the other four cases it was.