He was previously reprimanded for driving unnecessarily late in Australia, followed by three more for impeding offenses in Australia, Bahrain and Monaco. Knowing he was coming into Monza with a grid penalty, AlphaTauri gave Tsunoda a new power unit, guaranteeing he would start at the back of the grid. Having combined the reprimands and penalties of the power unit in one stroke, Tsunoda made his life more difficult by speeding under the yellows in practice. This earned him a three-place penalty that didn’t really make sense, but more importantly two penalty points, taking him to eight for the season. Just four more will result in a one-match ban. “At least I don’t have to think about any rebuke that was already piled up behind my stick,” he said when asked by Autosport/Motorsport.com about the penalty situation. “At least it’s clear now. I can fight really hard from now on. Well, I have eight penalty points left. “Of course, I try as much as possible not to make stupid moves. But the thing is, I try to get past it and crash it, or anything that’s different, it’s good learning. “But sometimes I did unnecessary things, like yellow flags for example, the penalty points, I definitely have to stop those things.” Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri AT03 Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images AlphaTauri team boss Franz Tost called Tsunoda’s Monza yellow flag penalty “not smart” and said he should be “more disciplined”. Tsunoda admitted it was a silly mistake. “There was a misunderstanding to be honest between my mechanic and myself. I got a call on the radio that I misunderstood myself. Normally of course I slow down myself and I’ve never been penalized for yellow flags, and there was a bit of a misunderstanding with the radio, that’s why I wasn’t too late. “It’s my responsibility though, I’ll have to reduce it, especially the yellow flag for safety. It was good learning for next time.” Tsunoda finished Q1 at Monza in a solid eighth, but as he was destined for 20th, the team opted not to run him for the rest of the season. “I was preparing for the race more than the qualifying performance. So we decided not to run in Q2, which was already scheduled before FP2. That’s fine, and at least I went to Q2. So that’s positive. Let’s see how it goes tomorrow , and hopefully this preparation from what I’ve done since FP1 will work.” “Let’s hope the pace will be good, in Monza it is possible to overtake. It will be difficult, but it’s not impossible.” Read also:
