Yuki Tsunoda unlucky in Las Vegas despite his DHL Fastest Pit Stop

Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda is fighting to keep his place with Red Bull Racing but was again unable to produce a decent performance in Las Vegas. He was eliminated at an early stage in Q1 of a rain-hit qualifying session, part of the reason being, the tire pressures on his RB21 had not been adjusted to suit the conditions. For the race itself, his car was fitted with a new engine, which meant he had to start from the pit lane.

And so, he avoided all the chaos at the start, but the decision to pit him during the yellow flag period on the opening lap turned out to be a mistake, because the virtual safety car was deployed just as he switched to hard tires, and he dropped way down the field as a result.

Tsunoda's hard tires then began to seriously degrade during the race, which made Red Bull bring him in again on lap 27. His pit crew did a brilliant job under the Las Vegas floodlights of changing the tires on the RB21 in just 1.99 seconds to give Red Bull Racing their fourth DHL Fastest Pit Stop of the season. However, this second pit stop put a points-scoring finish out of reach, and the disqualification of both McLaren drivers was never going to change that.

"It feels like everything so far is going against me," said the disappointed Japanese driver after three races in a row out of the points. "This weekend is bringing me bad luck!" But he thought the team should share some of the blame for the poor outcome, as the wrong tire pressures were used for qualifying, which was the beginning of the end for him: "It is frustrating that I couldn't use the pace I had until qualifying. We just threw it away. Something like this should not happen."