Yuki Tsunoda remains unhappy with the 10-second penalty he was given in Brazil for a collision with Lance Stroll.
The AlphaTauri driver pointed out Daniel Ricciardo went unpunished for a first-lap collision with Valtteri Bottas in the Mexico City Grand Prix, and believes the same should have applied to him.“I’m thinking that was not fully my fault,” said Tsunoda. “For me, 10 seconds is really, I think, way too harsh.
“I mean, five seconds is still, for me, quite harsh compared to the one I saw in the first lap in Mexico in turn one, the collision with Bottas, they didn’t get any penalty. I got a 10 second penalty.”
Ricciardo was not penalised for hitting Bottas after the stewards ruled he had his car under control, after locking a wheel, when the pair made contact at the apex of the corner. Tsunoda said he re-watched his collision with Stroll “a lot of times” and believes the two incidents were similar.
Stroll, who retired with damage later in the race, said the incident “was a shame” but wasn’t convinced he would have been able to score points.
“We were in a position to have a good fight in the race. I think it would have been maybe challenging to score points but I was, from a difficult Friday, recovering a little bit in the sprint race and we were recovering a little bit more on Sunday.
“It was a shame that it had to end our race like that. But it’s done now and focussed on the last few races of the season.”
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tielemst
18th November 2021, 13:31
I’d say 5 seconds would have been fair. I mean, he didn’t do a lot more than Verstappen did. Oh, wait….
Brian (@bealzbob)
18th November 2021, 13:36
I sympathise with Yuki here. Stroll is getting off absolutely scot free for clearly not seeing a car that was basically right beside him at the point where he turned in. For driving the normal racing line with no adjustment to avoid an accident.
Yes Yuki’s move is speculative and extremely optimistic, and he must take the majority of any blame by putting both cars in that position. But for Lance to not even see him there is a worrying lack of awareness from an F1 driver and fairly typical of the driving standards I expect from Stroll. He lacks in some very key areas. Concentration, consistency and awareness, and those are areas you don’t improve with coaching or experience.
Jere (@jerejj)
18th November 2021, 13:44
@bealzbob Lance had to start turning left at some point anyway. Yuki came from quite far back, so not much to do.
chris (@9chris9)
18th November 2021, 15:45
Lewis managed to avoid a collision with Max even though Max was no where near the apex and had no desire to make the corner.
I think Yuki’s penalty was too harsh.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
18th November 2021, 18:00
@bealzbob I agree with this. The accident is clearly Tsunoda’s fault but you would still expect the driver in front to see him coming and avoid the accident. Stroll doesn’t seem to pay much attention to his mirrors, as we’ve seen recently in Russia as another example.
anon
18th November 2021, 19:59
@keithedin given the angle that Tsunoda was approaching that corner at, would it actually have been that easy to see him coming?
Entering the braking zone, he was quite some way back from Stroll – he then cuts all the way across from one side of the track to the other quite quickly to take a quite shallow line into Turn 1. At the point where Stroll start to turn into the corner, I am not sure that the viewing angle of the rear view mirrors would have been wide enough for anybody to see where Tsunoda was.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
18th November 2021, 13:38
ricciardo did his move on lap 1. It has been said so many times that the stewards let things go a lot of the time for this and i can sort of see why, unless it is really clumsy and very one sided. Ricciardo made Bottas spin, but it didn’t look really clumsy and it was lap 1. Tsunoda did his move later in the race and he did a lunge that Strroll had no right to be ready to move out the way for.
The incident resulted in Stroll retiring. 5 seconds and 2 penalty points may have been enough though, but 10 seconds wasn’t overkill IMO.
Jere (@jerejj)
18th November 2021, 13:45
He should’ve already accepted being 100% at fault for his over-optimistic lunge from quite far behind.
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
18th November 2021, 14:10
This exactly. I was optimistic about Tsunoda at the beginning of the year, but now I think that he doesn’t have the emotional maturity for F1.
Mr Squiggle
18th November 2021, 13:47
Also, Dan wasn’t trying to pass bottas in mexico, his move was Perez.
Whereas, yuki was making a move on stroll.
jff
18th November 2021, 13:56
I can see the similarities between both incidents, and ‘no penalty’ vs ’10s’ seems quite harsh, even when taking into account that RIC/BOT was on lap 1.
Maybe Yuki can ask Mercedes to dig up the sideways camera on Bottas’ car and ask for a review of the Mexico incident ;)
Mathias
18th November 2021, 14:03
Tsunoda missed the FIA notice that AngloSaxons drivers follow more lenient rules in F1.
ferrox glideh (@ferrox-glideh)
18th November 2021, 14:14
Tsunoda missed the rule that you can’t just barge into other racers.
Mark (@blueruck)
18th November 2021, 14:39
To me this is Apples & Oranges –
– Lap 1 turn 1 vs. several laps into a race
– Not fighting for position with car hit vs trying to gain a position
Was 10 seconds harsh, maybe. When viewed against the no penalty for Max on lap 48, then yes it was harsh.
Silfen (@silfen)
18th November 2021, 17:18
Imho it was similar with Hamilton vs Verstappen in Silverstone.
Stroll was in front, Tsunoda not even halfway alongside, so Stroll didn’t need to give him room. Although he could have avoided it, he didn’t, so it was predominantly (but not wholly) Tsunoda’s fault, hence the 10 second penalty, which is the same Hamilton got.
The reason Ricciardo didn’t get a penalty was because on lap 1 incidents that are not wholly to blame on one driver are not punished, while incidents that are, ate punished this year (for example Gssly).