Yuki Tsunoda explains why he crashed out of Singapore Grand Prix

AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda said there was “no excuse” for his mistake which saw him crash out of the Singapore Grand Prix.

Tsunoda’s race ended on lap 36 when he went into the barrier at the end of Turn 10, immersing himself in the Tecpro wall. The Japanese racer was not the only driver to struggle with the treacherous conditions with just 14 cars reaching the finishing line.

The heavy rain pre-race, which caused an hour’s delay to the night’s proceedings, meant the majority of the race was spent on intermediate tyres, but even then finding grip was difficult.

Tsunoda found that out when he locked up and skidded across the greasy surface into the barrier and out of the race, the 22-year-old forced to watch on as his car was rescued from the track.

Afterwards, Tsunoda made no excuses for the error and said it was “completely my fault”.

“I wasn’t running in the points anyway,” he told F1.com. “It just was difficult conditions. I just did a mistake by myself, just completely missed the braking point.

“Completely my fault and no excuses.”

It was a better day for Tsunoda’s team-matem Pierre Gasly, who finished in the points but the Frenchman, who is believed to be on his way to Alpine, was disappointed it was not more.

“I must say I’m very disappointed because we were doing an excellent race,” he said.  “I was behind Lando [Norris] and ahead of the two Aston Martins.

“I don’t understand why we boxed so early, we didn’t have to, and we just took a massive risk and lost position, being overcut by the cars on the track.

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“[In] Singapore we know how important track position is and today it cost us a lot, so I don’t fully understand why. We’ll have to review but for sure we left a lot of points on the table.

“It hurts because we have a target until the end of the year and today, I don’t think we did a good job.”

Gasly clarified that target was P7 in the Constructors’, a spot currently occupied by Aston Martin who are now three points ahead of AlphaTauri.

“We are fighting these two guys [Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll],” Gasly said. “We had the potential to finish ahead of them and we just gave them a lot of points today.

“We still have five other races but clearly there was an opportunity and we didn’t grab it.”

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