Tsunoda blames ‘miscommunication’ for Belgium strategy error that cost him points at Spa

Yuki Tsunoda was unable to capitalise on his best Qualifying result of the season for Red Bull as his Belgian Grand Prix unraveled following a "miscommunication" and strategy error.

The Red Bull man qualified seventh and was running in that position at the start of the race – an event that marked his 100th Grand Prix start – but he wound up finishing a frustrating P13 on a day where points seemed possible for the Japanese racer, who remains without a score since Imola back in May.

Tsunoda’s race suffered a significant blow in the first pit stop period as, with the track drying, a small handful of drivers gambled and came in to swap to slick tyres. That proved to be the right call, prompting the majority to pit on the next lap.

However, Tsunoda – and a small handful of others – stayed out one further lap, which given the length of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, proved to be very costly. When the Red Bull racer pitted, he tumbled from P7 to 12th and found himself in a DRS train behind Pierre Gasly’s Alpine.

“There was a miscommunication I guess between myself and the team,” Tsunoda explained after the race. “I requested to switch to the dry tyre, they called me way too late, I unfortunately had just passed the pit entry when they called me.

“One lap in these kinds of conditions is very decisive; I lost five positions and was stuck behind a bit all the race. That’s it, that was my race.”

Tsunoda fought hard to make it back to P11 and had DRS at times in his quest to overtake Gasly, but running in the dirty air for so long also cost him tyre wear, and he was picked off late on by both Ollie Bearman in the Haas and a much fresher-shod Nico Hulkenberg.

“I tried my best to overtake but unfortunately my straight-line speed was nowhere,” he added. "I requested to – well I tried my best to – overtake but my tyre was gone so it was frustrating.

“Overall, a frustrating race and disappointing not to be in the points. There are definitely a couple of things that we can take away from the race and we will re-focus for Budapest next weekend.”

Tsunoda remains under pressure to put together some strong results – since joining Red Bull, he has one ninth and two P10 finishes in the 11 Grands Prix he has contested with the team, plus a few points from finishing P6 in the Sprint in Miami.

Belgium initially looked like it might be a turning point for Tsunoda, who on Saturday finally received the same package of upgrades that Max Verstappen has been running. But sadly, his best Qualifying of the year and first Q3 showing since Miami did not result in any score.

Tsunoda remains 17th in the Drivers' Championship standings with 10 points in total, with the upcoming Hungarian Grand Prix the final race weekend before the summer break.