What happened during Yuki Tsunoda's strange abandonment?

Yuki tsunoda suffered a three-stage retirement at Zandvoort. After a first stop on the track on lap 44 as he left the pits, the Japanese managed to return to his box from where he restarted in slow motion to stop definitively at the edge of the track a little further on. Originally, the Japanese driver suspected that his tires were not properly secured. He had even anticipated his withdrawal from the test by detaching himself.

Ninth race out of points for Tsunoda

"I thought there was a problem in the back, says Yuki Tsunoda. My engineer also told me that, that's why we stopped on the track, but we didn't see any clear problem on the data, so we went back to the pits to fit new tires and after that, we saw a clear problem in the data – that’s why we stopped. » 

This retirement is synonymous with a ninth Grand Prix outside the points for Yuki Tsunoda, his last appearance in a top 10 dating back to the Spanish Grand Prix (10th). “The pace was okay, not great, but the points were achievable, so it’s a real shame, judges the stable resident Alpha Tauri. Without a doubt, we need a clean week of racing first, but at the same time I feel good progression so far in terms of pace. So, for my part, I will continue like this. »

Claudio Balestri, chief performance engineer of the Italian team, explains: “After seeing that the hard compound worked well on the other cars, we decided to equip Yuki with it. After the pit stop, he reported something strange at the rear of the car. We called him back to change the tires and immediately afterwards we had a car breakdown. This is currently under investigation within the team,” said Claudio Balestri, chief vehicle performance engineer ofAlpha Tauri. On his radio, Yuki Tsunoda speculated that there was a driveshaft problem.

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