Tsunoda ‘gave it everything until the end’ as he rues ‘frustrating’ penalty in Abu Dhabi

Yuki Tsunoda’s Red Bull career came to a close with a 14th place finish at Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi, the Japanese racer finishing his first season with the team in 17th place in the standings. But that position does not tell the full story of what happened in a thrilling season finale.

Starting from P10, Tsunoda was put on the hard compound tyre with one aim – to wind up ahead of Championship leader Lando Norris and do his best to disrupt the McLaren man and cost him track time, all in a bid to aid Max Verstappen’s Championship challenge.

Tsunoda’s game plan worked to the extent that he found Norris behind him midway through the race. But he was unable to keep the freshly-shod McLaren at bay, and in battling hard with Norris, Tsunoda was handed a penalty by the stewards to boot.

He received a five-second time penalty to serve at his own pit stop for “more than one change of direction to defend position” and his defence had even involved pushing Norris as wide as possible when the McLaren drew up alongside, Norris winding up with all four wheels off the track as a result.

“Car 4 was making an overtaking move on Car 22,” read the document from the FIA explaining Tsunoda's penalty. "Car 22 made a number of changes of direction which ultimately resulted in Car 4 having to go off track to avoid a collision. In doing so, Car 22 also effectively forced Car 4 off the track."

“I really tried my absolute best to score points today, and I think there could have been potential to do so, but the penalty made it tricky,” explained Tsunoda after the race. “We opted for a different strategy, and we were running well until the battle with Lando. I tried to hold him up, but he was pretty fast, and then I ended up with a frustrating penalty.”

Tsunoda now bows out of a fulltime F1 seat as he sees his cockpit at Red Bull filled by Isack Hadjar for next season, instead becoming the team’s reserve driver. But he was quick to thank his mechanics for all their hard work on his car this year – including through various set-up changes.

“I enjoyed a lot with the mechanics especially, the amount of support I had from them was phenomenal," Tsunoda added. "Probably some phases they were hating me because of a lot of overnight changes, a lot of you know massive set-up changes between FP3 and Qualifying.

"I told them yesterday, at least I trained them well, they are very sharp. Yeah, I’m sure they appreciated me."

“This year, if I look back at just the word called luck – I don’t want to say or use the word called luck to be honest. But I felt deeply unlucky… Every race weekend, something went on. This weekend, had to revert back to the old floor without my control you know with that incident in the pit lane [with Antonelli].

“Never had a straightforward race but at least I gave it all, I think I’ve shown what I can do.”

Tsunoda was on the F1 grid for five straight seasons, joining what was then AlphaTauri in 2021 and racing for the team all the way to the start of this season, when he was promoted to Red Bull after two races in place of Liam Lawson. And while he was disappointed to lose his seat, Tsunoda has at least learned plenty from driving and working alongside Verstappen this season.

”He is the best driver on the grid, seeing him work and extract everything that he does is, just shows how good he is, and he has the mentality to go with it, it's very inspiring to see,” concluded Tsunoda.