Yuki Tsunoda sends message to Lando Norris amid ‘very harsh’ penalty ‘review’
Yuki Tsunoda failed in a plot to delay Lando Norris in Abu Dhabi
Yuki Tsunoda has offered his congratulations to Lando Norris after the McLaren driver pipped his Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen to the F1 2025 title.
And the outgoing Red Bull racer believes the five-second penalty he received for trying to slow Norris’s progress during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was “very harsh” with Tsunoda planning to review the incident.
Yuki Tsunoda planning review over ‘very harsh’ Lando Norris penalty
Norris secured his maiden F1 title in Abu Dhabi last weekend, finishing third behind McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri and race winner Verstappen.
Despite collecting eight wins across the F1 2025 season – one more than Norris and Piastri – four-time world champion Verstappen fell two points short of Norris in the final standings.
Tsunoda was called upon by Red Bull to help Verstappen by slowing Norris’s progress after his pit stop in Abu Dhabi.
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However, the Japanese driver’s tactics caught the attention of the FIA stewards, who imposed a five-second time penalty on Tsunoda for making more than one change of direction in defence.
As reported by PlanetF1.com, Lance Stroll and Oliver Bearman were also handed five-second penalties for the same offence over the course of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Tsunoda, who eventually finished 14th, also saw one penalty point added to his F1 superlicence, putting him on eight out of 12 for the current 12-month window.
Red Bull announced ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that Tsunoda has been demoted to a test-and-reserve role for the F1 2026 seat with Isack Hadjar taking his seat alongside Verstappen.
In a post to social media, Tsunoda described his penalty as “frustrating” before offering his congratulations to Norris on the title and Verstappen on the race win.
He wrote: “It’s a shame we couldn’t end the year on a high, especially with a frustrating penalty.
“A big congrats to Lando on the championship and Max on the win.”
Speaking after the race, Tsunoda vowed to review the incident with Norris, revealing that his first impression of the penalty was that it was a “very harsh” decision.
He told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets on Sunday in Abu Dhabi: “I have to review back what happened there.
“I kind of have an idea why they applied a penalty, but at the same time I have to really review back if it actually deserved a five-second penalty or not, because it cost my race massively today.”
He added: “Everyone was doing it, so I don’t know. I don’t know what they were thinking about. As usual, it is very harsh.”
More on Yuki Tsunoda and Red Bull Racing from PlanetF1.com
Tsunoda’s race engineer was heard reminding him to attempt to halt Norris’s progress as the McLaren closed in on him.
The Japanese driver admitted that he could sense Red Bull’s tension on the pit wall, with Tsunoda moving to tell the team that he had the situation under control.
He said: “They were consistently on the radio: ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.
“I could tell the stress from them, but I was like: ‘Look, I know what to do. We talked about it.’
“I tried my best to defend as much as possible from him. There no benefit to let him go easily, so that was it.
“And I did, I tried my best, but he just came every quickly and overtook me.”
Asked if it would have been better to back Norris up in the slower final sector on the previous lap, Tsunoda claimed that the McLaren was too far away at that stage for his blocking tactics to come into the equation.
He said: “I thought about it, but he was also quite far away and managing massively into Turn 9, because the gap was still eight or nine tenths and he was closing up at five tenths a lap.
“I thought I could hold on one more lap, but he did well, maximised the performance in Turns 1-2-3-4-5 and closed the gap in Turn 1.
“But there was not much difference, because if I slowed down, he probably would have passed me into Turn 1.”
As reported by PlanetF1.com, Tsunoda and Red Bull were also punished for an incident with Norris earlier in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend.
Norris encountered a slow-moving Tsunoda on the high-speed approach to Turn 12, the slow right hander marking the start of the track’s famous hotel section, during Saturday’s FP2 session at Yas Marina.
Tsunoda was spotted holding out his arm in apology to Norris, but his remorse did not stop the stewards from taking a dim view of the near miss.
Red Bull was handed a €10,000 fine for failing to warn its driver that Norris was approaching, with Tsunoda given a formal warning for driving slowly in that area of the circuit.
Additional reporting by Mat Coch and Thomas Maher
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