More Red Bull woes with driver ‘nearly sent back home’ from America

Michelle Foster 21 Nov 2024 5:45 AM

Logo illustration for Red Bull Racing.

Yuki Tsunoda has revealed he “nearly” didn’t make it into the United States, stopped by border control as he tried to enter the country for the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Formula 1 is back racing in America this weekend with Las Vegas marking the third and final of the United States’ races.

Yuki Tsunoda: I nearly got sent back home

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock

But for VCARB’s Tsunoda there were a few worrying hours as the Japanese driver was stopped by border control and questioned by custom workers for several hours.

In the end it all ended well with the Formula 1 driver granted entrance.

“Luckily, they let me in after a couple of discussions,” he told media including PlanetF1.com. “Well, a lot of discussions, actually.

“But yeah, I nearly got sent back home. Everything is all good, so I’m here now.”

Tsunoda revealed although he had the required visas to enter and had no issues when he arrived in America for the Miami or Austin races, this time around things were a little different.

“I did the visas and everything. It’s been the same the last three tracks, right? I was able to enter smoothly at the previous track,” he added.

“Felt a bit strange that I got stopped and had a proper discussion. Luckily, it didn’t go on more than two hours or three hours. But yeah, I felt it’s going to be long travel for me.

“It’s not the first time we’ve come here this year. I heard a lot of things, but hopefully that is all well in the future and smoothly.”

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Formula 1 held the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix last season, a race won by Max Verstappen while a gearbox issue put Tsunoda out of the race.

This season he’s hoping for a better result but concedes the cold snap that has hit Las Vegas will make setting up the cars tricky.

“I think especially setup wise will be different, like a lot of things that probably we never experienced, or actually a lot of things that we did experience well in the previous tracks probably can be a player to actually make the car faster,” he said.

“So I think we have to think different way to make it work in this especially a unique track and unique conditions.

“So yeah, we didn’t have a good experience last year, but I think that experience actually gives us a bit more of an idea to what we can work with, what we could done better. So yeah, hopefully it’ll be it all works well.”

Team RB