Sunday at the Belgian Grand Prix is shaping up to be a difficult day for Yuki Tsunoda.
Because the RB F1 team made so many changes to the RB01 and replaced more parts than were allotted to each driver in a season, Tsunoda received a whopping 60-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race. With only 20 cars on the grid, Tsunoda will start from the back of the grid no matter where he starts in Saturday’s qualifying.
Despite starting 20th, Tsunoda managed to work his way up the ranks and finished the race in 17th place, when George Russell’s W15 was disqualified for not meeting the minimum weight requirement, promoting Tsunoda to 16th place.
He didn’t know that at the time of speaking to the official F1 channel and still believed he would have finished 17th, but gave an incredible explanation for what he achieved at Spa.
“Considering how I started at Zandvoort, I think finishing 17th is not bad,” Tsunoda said.
For reference, Zandvoort is the site of the Dutch Grand Prix, the next stop on the F1 schedule after the summer break. The curious might want to know the distance between Zandvoort and Spa, site of Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix.
Trustworthy 296 km on Google Maps Between these two circuits.
“We just didn’t have the pace overall throughout the race,” Tsunoda continued. “Hopefully we can figure that out. We’ve struggled a lot this week.”
Tsunoda may have struggled off track, but his explanation for his starting position on Sunday may have been the best answer of the week.
