Yuki Tsunoda has warned that changes made to the kerbing at the Lusail International Circuit could create a ‘floor wrecker’ of a weekend for Formula 1 teams.
Following its maiden appearance on the F1 calendar in 2021, the Lusail circuit has undergone significant renovations ahead of its return this weekend.
As part of the renovations, the circuit has undergone a complete resurfacing for the first time since the venue was built in 2004. The kerbing around the track has also been revised.
During the race in 2021, Valtteri Bottas, Nicholas Latifi and George Russell all suffered punctures, which post-race investigations suggested were caused by an overuse of the kerbs.
However, the changes to the kerbing solution for this weekend’s event have already received criticism from Yuki Tsunoda and AlphaTauri, who believe that the revised design is too extreme for the current generation of F1 machinery.
“I think the biggest challenge will be the kerbs. It seems they have changed to the aggressive kerbs,” Tsunoda noted on Thursday.
“Here it is always a story of track limits and they have made the kerbs even worse. When you go off the white line, you have to have a proper penalty which seems like it’s going to be a high risk of damaging the car, so that’s probably the main point.”
Discussing the topic further, the AlphaTauri driver noted that the biggest issue was the transition between the kerb itself and running wider off-track.
In order to generate sufficient levels of downforce, the current ground-effect generation of cars must run lower to the ground compared to F1’s last visit to Qatar in 2021.
Any drivers that find themselves running beyond the kerbs could face serious consequences in terms of performance should they sustain any floor damage.
“I’ve seen the pictures already. There’s definitely a big step between the kerb and off-track. Driving on the kerb won’t be an issue,” he continued to explain.
“But once you step out from the kerbs it’s going to be like a complete sliding effect. It is not smooth at all, and especially driving here, with such high-speed corners where the car is really low, it will be hard. Even one time will be pretty costly I think.”
The 23-year-old said that images of the revised kerbs arrived too late to be able to update the team’s simulated version of the circuit, limiting preparation.
As the Qatar Grand Prix is a Sprint weekend, the drivers will only have one hour of practice on Friday before heading into competitive running for the remainder of the event.
“I think [the weekend will be] a floor destroyer, for sure,” Tsunoda added.
“I did the simulator on Tuesday. The pictures arrived later on that day so we couldn’t simulate it properly yet, but yeah. The pictures, they look really aggressive and all the engineers were concerned about it – I think all the team anyway.”
AlphaTauri arrive in Qatar bottom of the Constructors’ Championship on five points, three of which have been claimed by Tsunoda.
Despite a disappointing season to date, Tsunoda is optimistic that the team can still challenge for seventh in the standings in the wake of considerable upgrades in recent weeks.
“I think it’s still possible,” the Japanese driver said of his team’s chances in the lower-order squabble in the Constructors’ standings. ” It’s quite still and a lot of things can still happen. If we are able to extract from it [the car], I think there is still a chance so I think P7 is still possible.
“First obviously we have to be P9 first, and to aim for P7. But, I think there are more materials than the first half [of the season] to fight for those points. I’m feeling optimistic.”
