Mercedes send support to Yuki Tsunoda after Christian Horner's brutal message
Mercedes took to Twitter to send a supportive message to AlphaTauri rookie Yuki Tsunoda after he was caught in the crosshairs of Christian Horner, who implied the Japanese youngster had ruined Red Bull's qualifying effort for the Mexican Grand Prix.
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Mercedes sent a supportive message to AlphaTauri star Yuki Tsunoda after title rivals Red Bull implied the rookie had ruined their qualifying effort. Red Bull entered qualifying as the favourite to secure pole after a comfortable one-two in final practice, with Sergio Perez dreaming of a home pole while Mercedes were half a second slower.
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The Silver Arrows hit back in style though, with Bottas claiming an unlikely third pole of the season while teammate Hamilton took P2 to secure an unlikely front row lock-out - their first of the season.
Verstappen finished third after finishing over three tenths off the Finn following a chaotic end to qualifying.
Looking for any advantage to aid his final run, Verstappen pursued Perez to gain a slipstream but the plan was derailed when Tsunoda - who is set to take an engine penalty regardless - ran wide and the Mexican joined him, slowing the Dutchman as he thought yellow flags would wave and costing him pole position.
World Championship leader Verstappen and Perez, who had high hopes of a front-row lockout for Red Bull, will instead start third and fourth behind the Mercedes duo on what was expected to be a track to favour the Milton Keynes-based team.
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Red Bull boss Christian Horner declared his drivers had been ‘Tsunoda’d’, adding: “I don’t understand why he was just cruising around at that part of the circuit.
“It’s disappointing because it affected both the drivers. They are both pretty annoyed.”
Tsunoda took to Twitter to voice his opinion of the incident, writing: “Nothing I can do more than that…”
Mercedes’ Twitter account replied with a kind and supportive message to the 21-year-old.
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“Keep your head up, Yuki. Don’t let the haters get you down,” the German manufacturer wrote.
After qualifying, Tsunoda told The Race he did not influence Perez’s lap as he just made an individual mistake and he had no idea he had affected Verstappen’s attempt.
“I went outside [the track] and I couldn’t do anything more,” the Japanese star said. “Where should I go?
“I heard a countdown [of the gap to Perez] but I was into sector two. I had one more chance [to get out of the way]. I don’t know what they expected me to do.”
Tsunoda even asked the media he was speaking to of their opinion: “Do you think I did the wrong thing?
“I’m a bit worried now because I’ll have to discuss it with Red Bull whether I did anything wrong.”
He was more upbeat when considering the performance of both himself and teammate Pierre Gasly in what was a successful session for AlphaTauri.
“Q2, Q3, I just have to sacrifice my performance,” Tsunoda continued.
“I’m really happy to help the team, happy for today’s job. I think the pace is there [to score points], so we’ll see tomorrow.”
