Tsunoda was handed a 10-place grid penalty at Monza after receiving his fifth caution of the season for running a lap with his seat belts loosened during the Dutch GP.
He had previously received another reprimand for driving unnecessarily slow in Australia , which was followed by three more for offenses for disturbing other drivers in Australia, Bahrain and Monaco .
Arriving at Monza with a grid penalty, AlphaTauri fitted Tsunoda with a new power unit, ensuring he would start at the back of the grid.
After merging the reprimand penalty and engine change penalty into one, Yuki Tsunoda unnecessarily made life difficult for himself by speeding under yellow flags in practice.
That gave him another three-place grid penalty which, in fact, had no effect, but more importantly he was handed two penalty points, bringing him to eight over the last year. If he adds four more, he will have to lose a race through penalty.
“At least I don’t have to think about any reprimands, a penalty that was already sticking to my ass,” he said when asked by Motorsport.com about the penalties.
“At least now it’s clear. I can fight quite a bit from now on. I still have eight penalty points.”
“Of course, I am careful not to make any stupid moves. But the thing is, I try to overtake and if I crash I have a lesson to learn.”
“But sometimes I did unnecessary things, like with the yellow flags for example. I have to stop that kind of thing for the penalty points, for sure.”
AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost called Tsunoda’s yellow flag penalty at the Italian GP “unwise” and said he needed to be “more disciplined”. Tsunoda admitted that it was a dumb mistake.
“There was a little misunderstanding, to be honest, between me and my engineer. I got a radio order that I misunderstood. Normally, of course, I slow down myself, and I’ve never gotten a yellow flag penalty before. There was a little misunderstanding with the radio, that’s why I didn’t really slow down.
“It’s still my responsibility, I should reduce it, especially at a yellow flag for safety. It was a good lesson for next time.”
Tsunoda finished Q1 at Monza in a strong 8th position, but as he was destined to be 20th, the team opted not to have him out on track for the rest of the session.
“I was preparing for the race, more than qualifying. So we decided not to start in Q2, which was already planned before FP2. Which is fine, and at least I got through to Q2. So that’s positive. We are going to see how it goes in the race, and I hope that this preparation of what I did since FP1 works”.
“Hopefully the pace is good, at Monza it is possible to overtake. It will be difficult but not impossible.”
