{"id":332823,"date":"2025-12-07T13:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T13:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/332823\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T13:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T13:22:11","slug":"how-tsunoda-sacrificed-his-qualifying-to-help-verstappen-to-f1-abu-dhabi-gp-pole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/332823\/","title":{"rendered":"How Tsunoda sacrificed his qualifying to help Verstappen to F1 Abu Dhabi GP pole"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yuki Tsunoda<\/a> has explained how he gave Formula 1 title-contending team-mate Max Verstappen<\/a> a tow for Abu Dhabi Grand Prix pole position \u2013 and will sacrifice his race too.<\/p>\n

After his floor was damaged in a pitlane collision with Mercedes<\/a>\u2019 Andrea Kimi Antonelli<\/a> in final practice, Tsunoda moved back to an older specification and only just scraped through to Q3.<\/p>\n

The Japanese driver took 15th in Q1, just 0.008s ahead of Lewis Hamilton<\/a>, then 10th in Q2, merely 0.007s faster than Oliver Bearman<\/a>, as the top 15 cars qualified within 0.367s.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that Antonelli collision, I had to revert back to the old floor, which, to be honest, cost my performance into qualifying,\u201d Tsunoda commented. \u201cSo, I kind of expected it would be difficult to get through [to] Q3.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously going through Q3 and helping Max was the baseline plan. But at the same time, I was a little bit worried about that, with that spec. But I ultimately made it through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Yuki <\/p>\n

Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Zak Mauger \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

This paved the way for his assisting role in Q3, when he gave Verstappen a tow, which helped the latter set pole by two tenths over his title rivals Lando Norris<\/a> and Oscar Piastri<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tsunoda opened up about how much pressure that represented: \u201cBecause I couldn’t be very close into Turn 5, couldn’t be very far. So it was very stressful, to be honest. But at least I was able to do it, and they gave me some compliments. I’ll take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYuki was incredible \u2013 the slipstream worked perfectly,\u201d Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko told ServusTV. \u201cSo things are already looking better again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

Having lost his Red Bull drive for 2026 as he is demoted to a test and reserve role with the team, Tsunoda has nothing to lose anymore and will play a tactical role as pitstops unfold.<\/p>\n

This evokes memories of Sergio Perez<\/a> who, in 2021, had his first pitstop delayed so that he could hinder virtual race leader Hamilton, costing the Mercedes racer seven seconds relative to Verstappen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ll do as much as I can to help him,\u201d Tsunoda affirmed. \u201cMost likely, it would probably compromise my strategy, but with his position, how he ended up, there’s still a chance to get a championship. So, I’ll do as much as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yuki Tsunoda has explained how he gave Formula 1 title-contending team-mate Max Verstappen a tow for Abu Dhabi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[182715,64,63,813,186072,825,806,805,803,804,946,85,169580,5077],"class_list":["post-332823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-abu-dhabi-gp","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-formula-1","tag-how-tsunoda-sacrificed-his-qualifying-to-help-verstappen-to-f1-abu-dhabi-gp-pole","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports","tag-yas-marina-circuit","tag-yuki-tsunoda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}