“He was just cocky”- Helmut Marko smashes Yuki Tsunoda’s errors in Imola

“He was just cocky”– Yuki Tsunoda receives massive criticism from Helmut Marko upon his mistakes in Imola that cost him the race.

Yuki Tsunoda, after an impressive debut in Bahrain, much was expected from the Japanese International in Imola, but he brought a DNF from the race.

Helmut Marko is totally displeased with Tsunoda’s approach, as he even failed to make it into Q3, while his teammate Pierre Gasly secured a P5 start ahead of Sunday.

“Yuki had a fast car. It would definitely have been suitable for Q3,” Marko said on the Austrian channel ServusTV. “It was just a foolish mistake, and you can’t make it any smaller than it already is. I spoke to Yuki after the race. He was totally contrite.

“Yuki had powerful sector times on the very first lap, but slamming a great time on the very first lap doesn’t do anything at all. He was just cocky.”

Not acceptable performance

Tsunoda himself was full of self-criticism after the race and called his performance “really not acceptable” after recalling his errors that led to his abysmal weekend.

“I was too aggressive into Turn 2,” he told the official Formula 1 website. “After that, my pace was perfect, so it was a shame that I spun on the first lap and couldn’t get points.

“I feel sorry for the team; overall, this weekend was really tough for me. But I’ll learn from it and do better next time. It was possible to get points this time, but as I said, this is a learning curve; just don’t it again next time and make it a better race.”

Realizing his mistake, Tsunoda affirmed that he will transform his driving style during the qualifying and will not push the car over the limit in future.

“For me, Q1, completely my mistake,” he added. “Even in Q1, like when I see car performance overall this week, I don’t have to push like that much.

“I don’t know why; I just pushed too much even though I don’t have to.”

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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