Tsunoda ‘frustrated’ by costly Red Bull error as he suffers early exit in Austin Sprint Qualifying

Yuki Tsunoda was left questioning what had happened after a timing error from Red Bull saw him drop out of the first phase of Sprint Qualifying at the Circuit of The Americas.

The closing moments of SQ1 saw chaos on the track, as numerous drivers battled not only for track position, but also to make it to the line in time to begin their final laps. For Tsunoda, Esteban Ocon, Ollie Bearman and Gabriel Bortoleto, their failure to do so resulted in their immediate exits from the Friday session.

As a result, Tsunoda will start Saturday's Sprint from 18th on the grid, while Bearman, Ocon and Bortoleto line up in 16th, 19th and 20th respectively.

Asked what had happened, Tsunoda said: “I don’t know. We have to look into it.”

He added: “It’s very frustrating, because I got out with…it’s not in my control. We can control, but it’s more up to them rather than myself managing the timings. It’s pretty shocking.”

Liam Lawson was also caught up in the mayhem in his Racing Bulls car and came close to contact with Tsunoda at Turn 2, a move which drew ire from his early-season Red Bull replacement.

“It’s just more like his usual,” said Tsunoda. “I expect nothing more than that from him, to be honest.

"It’s more like just the timing of the garage exit was not even close. I don’t know what’s happened there. Something went wrong, and I didn’t have an opportunity to do the lap time, so it’s a shame.”

The shorter Sprint Qualifying phases leave teams with considerably less room to manoeuvre in terms of strategy across the session, especially on a longer layout such as COTA, and Red Bull Team Principal Laurent Mekies was quick to apologise to Tsunoda for what happened.

“We got it wrong,” he told Sky Sports F1. “We apologised to Yuki. The programme was a bit too tight. It was a choice between staying out and cooling down on track, or coming in and trying to cool down a bit better in the garage.

“We thought we would have the time to get back into the garage and get out again, but it was only possible for a few cars to do that, and we missed the cut. We owe Yuki an apology there.”