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RB driver Yuki Tsunoda was involved in a Lap 1 incident with Aston Martin's Lance Stroll, resulting in significant damage to his VCARB 01. Stroll's ambitious move left a gaping hole in the side pods of Tsunoda's RB, while Stroll himself pitted immediately after the contact.
Despite the significant damage, RB decided to keep Tsunoda on the track to aid his teammate Daniel Ricciardo. The Japanese driver was overtaken by Lando Norris, and Nico Hulkenberg on Lap 3 before the team asked him to let his teammate Ricciardo by, who started the race on hard tires.
Tsunoda also lost track position to Pierre Gasly and Lewis Hamilton, but the team chose to keep him on track to hold off Sauber drivers Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu, and Esteban Ocon. Despite being significantly slower, Tsunoda managed to defend his position, creating a buffer for his teammate Ricciardo.
After the pit stop cycle began, Tsunoda was brought into the pits on Lap 12 and retired from the race on Lap 14, when he was last in the running order. Tsunoda's race engineer, Ernesto Desiderio, disclosed over the radio that the team had kept him out longer to aid Ricciardo.
"I’m sorry if we didn’t call you in earlier. We were trying to do a bit of teamwork," he said over the radio.
Daniel Ricciardo extended his first stint on hard tires until the final laps of the race, despite experiencing significantly high levels of graining. He ultimately finished 13th, with RB netting zero points for the weekend, while rivals Williams secured 10 points.
With seven races left in the season, RB occupies sixth place in the Constructors' standings with 34 points. Haas and Williams trail behind with 29 and 16 points respectively.
Yuki Tsunoda frustrated after back-to-back retirements
Yuki Tsunoda was left frustrated after recording back-to-back DNF results in the previous two rounds at Monza and Baku. Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg was responsible for the contact in the Italian GP, while Lance Stroll caused the damage in the Azerbaijan GP.
The 24-year-old Japanese driver expressed his frustration after losing crucial points-scoring opportunities in the past two weekends. He was quoted by Formula1.com as saying:
"Great shame. Very frustrated to have this happen two races in a row. A very short race, losing the opportunity to score points, which would still have been tricky, but you never know on these street races."
"Starting P12 is obviously not ideal and means there are a lot of risks of getting damage. We just need to step up a little bit and qualify in the top 10, so we can get a better start," he added.
Yuki Tsunoda sits 12th in the Drivers' standings with 22 points, tied with Nico Hulkenberg, while teammate Daniel Ricciardo is in 14th position with 12 points.
