Yuki Tsunoda in Baku - Photo: Race Pictures

Red Bull's sprint quali gaffe meets Tsunoda's utter shock

14:00, 18 Oct

byNorberto Mujica

Yuki Tsunoda has rued his Sprint Qualifying outing and branded Red Bull Racing's SQ1 exit prompting blunder "shocking."

It was more up to them [the team] than myself, managing the timing. So it's pretty shocking,

- Yuki Tsunoda

As the clocked ticked down the very hectic session SQ1 usually us, Tsunoda found himself in need to put a competitive lap time on the board.

Nevertheless, between refuelling his RB21, the need for other cars to build an 8-second gap to the driver ahead to have a clean last lap push and the little time left on the clock, forced Red Bull into making a costly mistake.

"The timing of the garage exit was not even close," said Tsunoda to F1TV. "I don't know what's happened there, to be honest. Something went wrong and we didn't have any opportunity to do [a] laptime, so [it was a] shame.

"Very frustrating. It's not a thing I can control, to be honest, or we can control. But it was more up to them [the team] than myself, managing the timing. So it's pretty shocking," Tsunoda concluded.

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Yuki Tsunoda failed to make it past SQ1 due to a Red Bull mistake. Photo: RacePictures.

Red bull apologises to Tsunoda

Following the Sprint Qualifying session in Austin, Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies apologised to Tsunoda for the team's blunder.

He said: "We got it wrong, we apologise to Yuki. The programme was a bit too tight, it was a choice between staying out and cooling down on track or trying to cool down a bit better in the garage.

"We thought we'd have time to get out of garage and back out again, but it was only possible for two cars to do that, but we missed the cut. We owe Yuki and apologise there."

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