Yuki Tsunoda once again says sorry about his collision with Pierre Gasly in F1 British GP which eventually cost them points.
Whether it was Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna in 1989 or Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber in 2010 or Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton in 2016, Daniel Ricciardo and Verstappen in 2018, Charles Leclerc and Vettel in 2019, F1’s one golden rule is to never take your teammate out in a grand prix.
It had been a tough F1 British GP for Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and Gasly. Firstly, neither made it into Q3, while the Frenchman got caught up in the start line melee that led to the red flag, the Japanese also had a collision on the opening lap.
The red flag allowed the team to repair their cars but the two chargers then collided between themselves at Turn 1 when Tsunoda tried an inside line move on Gasly. For the latter, it led to his retirement due to damage which got caught into Max Verstappen’s car.
“I was missing part of the rear-wing and it was just hanging there so we had to retire,” said Gasly. “It was after contact with Yuki, like…I don’t want to speak about it now but clearly it’s something we need to speak about internally because we were both in the points, was clearly an unnecessary incident and just disappointed about it.
“Every point is valuable, especially in a season like this, so I’m disappointed with the end result, as it was an unnecessary collision. The accident with Zhou was really scary at the start of the race, it was shocking to see him upside down but I’m glad to hear he’s ok, that’s the most important thing,” summed up Gasly.
A tough, frustrating and very irritating season for Gasly so far. If anything he has not been able to get an even break at all in 2022. It is the proverbial two steps forward and three back for him this season. In the other garage of the Faenza team, Tsunoda felt he could have waited for another go in hindsight as he ended up getting a penalty.
It eventually ended his chances of points which was possible at one point despite his Lap 1 collision. “Lot of things went on and the first collision I had was in turn one, one I could not avoid, the car came suddenly in front of me sideways, luckily I just lost my front-wing, could have been damaged even more so kind of fortunate,” said Tsunoda.
“The second one was a collision with my teammate was definitely avoidable so nothing to say bar that but sorry for the team. I’ll have to review it properly but at the moment so far I could wait for the opportunity but at the same time there was not enough space than what I wanted but of course we were fighting each other so he want to give me minimum space as much as possible because we were battling, so yeah I just have to say sorry for the team yep,” summed up Tsunoda.
It is always refreshing in this day to see a driver being as honest as this and owning up to an error. It is also a case scenario sometimes where a driver should not always be honest and say sorry as it can affect a drivers career insofar as they may be deemed of weak position or character.
Here’s Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda collision: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-british-grand-prix-alphatauri-team-mates-gasly-and-tsunoda-collide-at-silverstone.1737346489883953290.html