Yuki Tsunoda finally dragged something resembling a result out of a miserable Monza weekend, only for the stewards to threaten taking it straight back off him. The Racing Bulls driver crossed the line in tenth place at the Italian Grand Prix, a genuine rescue act given where his weekend started, but he now finds himself summoned to explain a grid infringement from the race’s restart.
Wrong Spot, Wrong Time
The trouble stems from the red flag period triggered by Charles Leclerc’s heavy crash early in the race. When the field prepared to line back up for the restart, Tsunoda parked in the wrong grid slot. Race control noticed immediately and aborted the start altogether, forcing every car to sort itself out and form up correctly before the race could actually get going again.
It is the sort of mistake that sounds trivial written down and is anything but when you are the one who caused an entire grid to shuffle back into position under a red flag. Tsunoda is due in front of the stewards at 17:45 local time, and depending on how harshly they view it, his tenth place and the point that comes with it could evaporate before the day is out.
A Weekend That Needed Saving
Some context on why this stings. Tsunoda has been standing in for Liam Lawson, who himself is currently occupying the Red Bull seat in place of the injured Isack Hadjar. It is a game of musical chairs across two teams, and Tsunoda’s turn in the Racing Bulls car has not exactly gone to plan.
Qualifying was a disaster. He went out in Q1 and ended up starting well down the order, a session so bad that even he could not fully explain it afterwards. As reported by Formula1.com, Tsunoda pointed to a first sector where he was seven tenths off, with only two corners in it, and admitted the gap to team mate Arvid Lindblad left him baffled.
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t do any special things in Qualifying. I shouldn’t be that slow, in my opinion.” – Yuki Tsunoda
He was gracious enough about the team’s efforts, insisting nobody had been slacking, but the numbers told their own story. A driver who had looked genuinely sharp filling in at Zandvoort suddenly could not find performance at Monza, and it left him needing the race to salvage something. Climbing to tenth from that starting position was exactly the kind of recovery drive that reminds people why he was worth putting back in the car in the first place. Now it might count for nothing.
Lawson’s Weekend Was No Better
It says something about how this Italian Grand Prix has gone for the stand-in duo that Lawson’s story reads almost identically grim. He arrived already compromised, with Red Bull opting to change power unit elements that sent him toward the back of the grid regardless of what he did in qualifying. He still only managed P13 in Q2, failed to reach Q3, and was further hampered when Oscar Piastri blocked him at Turn 1 on his final push lap, an incident that earned Piastri a three place grid penalty of his own.
“I just spent the whole quali in clean air until that last lap, that was the first time I’d sat behind a car. So trying to do it for the first time was not ideal.” – Liam Lawson
Lawson ended up starting from the pit lane after further changes were made to his car under parc fermé conditions, a demotion detailed in our report on the parc fermé breaches that also caught Fernando Alonso. Two drivers who looked like genuine finds a couple of weekends ago suddenly look like men reminding everyone why seats are never guaranteed. Lawson, in particular, knows Nikola Tsolov is waiting for any sign of weakness, and Monza has handed him little to work with.
Why This Matters More Than It Should
A tenth place finish sounds like small change in a season where Kimi Antonelli is busy running away with the championship and Mercedes are sitting on a commanding lead in the constructors’ table. But for a midfield team scrapping over points, and for a driver whose seat beyond this season is not remotely secure, one point is one point. Racing Bulls currently sit fifth in the constructors’ standings, and every scrap matters when the gap to the teams above is what it is.
Whether the stewards treat this as a minor procedural slip or something worthy of a penalty will say a lot about how seriously race control takes restart discipline. Lining up in the wrong slot and forcing an aborted start is not a victimless error, it cost the field time and added confusion to an already chaotic afternoon that began with Leclerc’s crash. If the stewards decide Tsunoda’s positioning gave him any kind of advantage, or simply breached the letter of the rules regardless of intent, that hard-fought point could vanish. Given how the rest of his weekend went, it would be a thoroughly on-brand way for it to end.
