AlphaTauri’s race in Monaco last weekend changed drastically a few laps from the end, right in the middle of the rain which allowed some scenarios to be overturned.
Before the sharp fall of rain that forced everyone to make a pit stop to put on the compounds suitable for a wet race, Yuki Tsunoda was practically sure he could assure the Faenza team some very important points, by keeping his ninth position.
Tsunoda once again impressed in qualifying as he made Q3 and started in P9. He comfortably held that position over the McLarens of Lando Norris (+5.5s) and Oscar Piastri (+10s) in the dry, before things took a turn for the worse in the wet.
The problem that ultimately hampered the Japanese driver’s race was related to the brakes, and made the AT04 undriveable, so much so that he lost 6 positions and finished fifteenth.
He was swallowed up by the McLaren drivers into turn 1 on consecutive laps and tumbled even further down the order when he went straight on at Mirabeau.
After the race, Tsunoda commented on his day and said to the media problems with the brakes destroyed his day:
“Until the rain started it was good, but had a brake issue and suddenly couldn’t push at all, and just pace was really, really poor, so it was really tough.
“The team said to push the brake more because the temperature will come up, so the brake will be in the normal range.
“So ‘okay, I appreciate it and see how it goes’. And I went immediately into the wall,” he explained.
Since the beginning of the season the Italian team has only collected two points, both thanks to Tsunoda. It’s a frustrating situation that further increases the sense of dissatisfaction about what happened on Sunday.
“I’m so disappointed,” said Tsunoda.
“I can’t describe with a word, but just until the until the middle of the race it was such a good car and such a good pace. Everything went well, so it’s hard to accept what happened in the end.”
