Yuki Tsunoda has apologised to the AlphaTauri team following his costly crash during qualifying at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
The Japanese driver collided with the barriers at the Variante Alta chicane while completing his first timed lap in Q1, ensuring he ended the session at the bottom of the timesheet.
Tsunoda states he was pushing too much at the entry to the corner, admitting he was “too excited” during the lap.
“[I was] just pushing too much at [the] entry, to be honest,” Tsunoda said. “Until then the lap felt great, actually.
“I think that potentially it was easy to go through Q1 with one tyre [set]. I was too excited. For me, that was a silly mistake, so I feel really sorry for the team. You have to reset today, and just drive the race tomorrow.
“I don’t have any pain or anything like that. I feel more worried about the car than me. It looked pretty bad actually, when I saw the back. I really hope the car is repaired properly tomorrow. [I] just feel sorry for the team today.”
As the tight Imola layout makes overtaking a difficult task, Tsunoda says he hopes factors such as weather play in his favour to aid his race recovery.
“Tomorrow is maybe going to be different conditions, rain,” Tsunoda said. “[Something to] try to help me a bit, anything.
“So just really put it altogether and don’t do mistakes like today. I think it will be a bit of a different view. It’s going to be different conditions, so I just have to adapt to the conditions tomorrow, and push until the end.”
Tsunoda’s team-mate Pierre Gasly is set to start Sunday’s race from fifth on the grid, sharing the third row with McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo.
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