After a less than ideal Sunday in Barcelona for Yuki Tsunoda, being forced to take an extra pit stop as RB went with a 3-stop strategy, the Japanese driver found himself finishing in 19th after a 5s time penalty was applied for speeding in the pitlane.
Speaking afterwards, the 24-year-old explained something did not feel right with the steering on a weekend where RB had very poor pace.
“There was an issue in the beginning, a clear issue, and for sure that was compromised a little bit, especially in the second stint.
“And [RB were] able to solve it in the run, at least in steering, but I’m not sure it’s fixed completely because I was feeling so weird inside the car.
“Yeah, I’m not sure how it happened, but one thing, like I said, there was something that felt completely wrong.
“Pace was nowhere, struggle with balance, everything.”
The Italian team brought new upgrades into the Spanish Grand Prix, although it is unclear if they are as effective as the team would have hoped, neither driving making it out of Q1 on Saturday and both finishing a long way from the points on Sunday.
The new upgrades seem to have hampered the team as he complained of a lot of sliding and a lack of downforce through the corners in qualifying, although Tsunoda was unable to fully judge the upgrades on race day due to his car’s issues.
“For me, it’s like there was something going on there, so I can’t judge completely, to be honest, for this one. For sure something went wrong.
“But for yesterday, in qualifying the balance is okay, but just too much sliding. I just didn’t feel much downforce.”
It was confirmed by RB on Tuesday that Tsunoda had an issue: a damaged floor mounting bracket was the cause.
