Yuki Tsunoda has become the latest Formula 1 driver to criticise Liam Lawson’s driving, claiming he “crossed the line” with their clash in the Italian Grand Prix.
As the duo ran alongside each other into the Variante della Roggia chicane at Monza, Lawson made contact with Tsunoda and was forced to take to the runoff.
The Red Bull driver picked up damage in the incident, which left him struggling through the field for the rest of the Grand Prix, taking the chequered flag in 13th.
Following the race, Tsunoda, whose team-mate Max Verstappen was victorious, expressed his frustrations over the incident to media including Motorsport Week.
“I got distracted by Lawson, who made contact, and that was quite big enough to pick up damage, and that was big enough to slow me down quite a lot.
“So very frustrating and very unnecessary from him.”
For Tsunoda, the main bone of contention was that he felt he was not in a genuine race with Lawson, who had stopped much earlier having started on the Soft tyre.
“I was gaining at one second per lap. He started last, and he was not even fighting for points,” he highlighted.
“If he was fighting for points, there’s some room that I can understand, because even with the sister team, we are enemies, and especially this position where I’m sitting now, is probably not most high competition, out of any world.
“But, at the same time, there’s a line that you can’t cross, and I mean, what’s the point? I was fighting for points and he wasn’t.”
Lawson insists ‘nothing really to it’
While Tsunoda was unimpressed, Lawson took a different stance. The Racing Bulls driver was quick to dismiss the collision as anything other than a racing incident.
“Nothing really to it, honestly,” he reviewed.
“He passed me into Turn 1. I tried to pass him back into Turn 4, and I had no room on the right-hand side. So we touched, went through the chicane, and then I gave the place back.”
Tsunoda insists he is improving at Red Bull
Tsunoda’s promotion to Red Bull has been marked with struggle as he battles to close the gap to Verstappen in a notoriously difficult-to-drive RB21 machine.
But although he has spent the early stages of his stint at Red Bull fighting outside the top positions, he believes that the performance is slowly coming to him.
“It’s getting better and better. There are some positives so that I can help him a lot, especially probably one of the closest days this weekend, in terms of the short run until Q1, Q2, I was consistently behind Max, two tenths,” he assessed.
“We know there’s a different floor, Q3. I know exactly what happened to cause a big difference. But it’s getting there.”
While not having the same floor as Verstappen, Tsunoda noted that the upgrade is “not massive”, but it will help him take another step closer to Verstappen.
“It’s not massive, but especially in this kind of track, it still counts,” he evaluated.
“So hopefully I can get it in the race, which hopefully this is Monza, it’s quite aggressive on the floor, so it’s a liability.
“So just keep pushing what I’ve got now and show that even with the current package I’m able to get close to Max”
READ MORE – How Yuki Tsunoda’s compromised Italian GP impacted Red Bull’s 2026 F1 driver planning
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