“It was like ice skating” – Yuki Tsunoda had this third qualifying crash in his rookie F1 season after his AlphaTauri spun backwards during French GP qualifying.
Yuki Tsunoda’s debut season in F1 went from bad to worse in France earlier today, after he crashed during the first session of qualifying. This makes it his third crash during qualifying, after Imola and Baku. He spoke to reporters after the crash, terming the car sliding backwards as “like ice skating”.
“I hit the inside yellow kerb too much at Turn 1. I didn’t expect [the turn in] to be that sharp. But yeah, still my mistake. When I applied the throttle, I think the rear tyre was still on the yellow kerb, and I spun out. I tried to brake as hard as I could to avoid damage and not smash the barrier.
“It was like ice skating when I was going backwards. The impact was quite low, the gearbox is not damaged, but we have to see. The impact was quite low, so I thought I could manage to get out from there, but the gear was not working somehow, so I had to check.
As the Honda-backed Japanese did not complete a single flying lap, he will start in P20, even in the unlikely situation of AlphaTauri having to change his gearbox and take a 5-place grid penalty.
“I’m gonna start from the back, and also, it’s quite hard to overtake. I have to do every lap as hard as I can and hope the situation can be a bit different or special but push hard as I said.”
