AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda ruled to have unfairly blocked Lewis Hamilton in Q2, which Toto Wolff says cost the seven-time champion a place in the grid's top 10 Hamilton to start 13th for Sunday's race, which is live at 2pm on Sky Sports F1
Saturday 26 August 2023 18:58, UK
Yuki Tsunoda has been handed a three-place grid penalty for blocking Lewis Hamilton in Dutch GP qualifying – an incident that Toto Wolff believes caused the Mercedes driver’s Q2 exit and 13th-place grid spot.
Tsunoda and Aston Martin's Lance Stroll were both summoned to the stewards in the wake of the rain-hit Zandvoort qualifying to explain separate incidents of alleged blocking against Hamilton's Mercedes in Q2 and Q1 respectively.
While Stroll's impeding was found by stewards not to have been sufficient enough to reach the threshold of a penalty, Tsunoda's was - and the Japanese driver will drop from 14th to 17th on Sunday's grid as a result.
Speaking before the penalty was announced, Wolff said Tsunoda had squarely been at fault.
"It's a shame for Lewis because the pace was there all weekend and we would have had two cars competing right at the front," Wolff told Sky Sports F1 after Hamilton missed out on Q3 by 0.084s.
"Overall, the session was maybe a mixture of being too close to Norris… but that's not the main thing: the impeding is just a disaster in Q2. On his quickest lap, he was impeded by Tsunoda going into the final straight and that cost him the position.
"He was too close to Norris and then he was out of sync. But the main thing was impeding. You need to have one lap at the end and he didn't have it."
"Tsunoda was on the dry racing line at the exit of Turn 13 preparing for his fast lap and had not fully come up to speed and therefore impeded Hamilton. Tsunoda explained that he had been passed by another car and decided to remain slow in order to regain his gap. In the opinion of the Stewards Tsunoda clearly had the ability to stay off the line and therefore this impeding was unnecessary."
While Hamilton dropped out, team-mate George Russell went on to qualify third behind polesitter Max Verstappen and McLaren's Lando Norris.
Speaking to reporters later on, Wolff added: "Lewis had really good pace all weekend and it's really painful to see that because of traffic, you're not making yourself go into Q3, which he would have deserved.
"I think also the impeding is pretty ugly to look at. I don't know whether it's become a bit of a pattern because people seemingly don't care, or are not getting penalised.
"If you see the impeding from Alonso in Q1, it's clear impeding and there was no further investigation.
"That cost him Q3."
The Mercedes team principal said there should be more of a deterrent for drivers who disrupt the qualifying sessions of rivals.
"I think the answer is penalise. Penalise, penalise," he said. "If you know you don't go prison when you cheat a tax, you cheat a tax.
"So I don't understand why these things are not penalised. It was a clear impeding with some drivers in Q1.
"And Tsunoda, he's a nice guy, but he impeded Lewis on his quick lap. He didn't move from the dry line.
"He dived on the inside and it didn't look like it cost much, but going from a dry line into wet line and back to dry line costs.
"I think a tenth would have put him into Q3. So we need to be harsh on penalties, then people will again look in their mirrors."
Hamilton had only once previously this year failed to make the final stage of qualifying, back at the Miami GP in May.
While there were mitigating factors for his early exit this time, he also admitted he had not been as happy with his W14 compared to the start of the weekend.
"It wasn't my day [on Saturday]. Since FP1, I've lost some confidence in the car and that made qualifying tricky," explained Hamilton.
"It was tough to get the tyres into the working window, I struggled with the balance and overall grip, and George also did a few different settings that seemed to work better. But we know that the car operates in a narrow window, and these things can happen when you are in that situation.
"On the final run, I did two consecutive laps and the tyres overheated on the second one, so I couldn't improve the time. Tomorrow is a new challenge; hopefully the car will be a bit better on full tanks, and we can make some forward progress. This isn't an easy circuit for doing that - but that will be the goal."
SUNDAY AUGUST 27
8.55am: F2 Feature Race
12.30pm: Grand Prix Sunday: Dutch GP build-up
2pm: THE DUTCH GRAND PRIX
4pm: Chequered Flag: Dutch GP reaction
5.30pm: Dutch GP highlights
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