In the final laps of Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix, Visa Cash App RB F1 Team looked on the brink of a double points win, with Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda both running inside the top 10 and a result that would have further cemented the team’s sixth place position in the F1 Constructors’ Championship standings.
In an instant, Kakuta went into the grass and was out of the points zone.
After the race, Tsunoda apologised to his team in the VCARB post-race report, praising the team’s strategy for the complex afternoon but calling it a “stupid” mistake.
“Today it was my mistake, a stupid move. I’m sorry to the team. They definitely made the right decision on the strategy and did a good job. It wasn’t easy with the old inters, but I was okay. Also, the timing to change to dry tires was also good. [tires] “It’s good,” Tsunoda said. “At least things went well from free practice to qualifying, so that’s good, but today’s result was disappointing and I didn’t deserve to finish the race. I was just thinking about winning.”
You can watch the spin here:
Ricciardo finished eighth in the afternoon, giving the team two points.
Team principal Laurent Mekies found reason to praise both drivers in his post-race comments.
“Although a slight clutch drag penalty for Daniel at the start and Yuki being stuck on track for a few minutes cost us a few points, there were also a lot of positives from this weekend. The drivers and team worked really well together as a solid unit on track and back at the factory the efforts of our staff were equally rewarded with both cars again making it into Q3 and scoring points today,” said Mekies.
“Daniel mentioned that Saturday marks exactly 10 years since his first F1 win at this track, and he seems to love it here as evidenced by his incredible fifth place in qualifying and eighth in the race! We also announced on Saturday that Yuuki will be signing with us for another year,” Mekies continued. “It’s natural and very good for him and for us to know that we don’t have to think about this issue anymore so early in the season.
“Yuuki also showed a great recovery this weekend after a difficult Friday and deserved to score some good points. We need to continue with our approach of taking small steps one by one in all disciplines,” concluded the VCARB chief. “This is helping us move up the rankings race by race and everyone in Faenza and Bicester is working extremely hard to bring more performance to our car.”
