Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies publicly apologized to Yuki Tsunoda following a critical team error during Friday’s sprint qualifying session at the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas. Tsunoda found himself at the tail of a pit lane queue with only one minute and 45 seconds left on the clock, leaving him under pressure to reach the starting line and begin a final flying lap.
Due to a miscalculation in the team’s timing strategy—choosing between cooling down on track versus in the garage—Tsunoda was unable to make it to the line in time, ending up 18th on the grid for Saturday’s race. He described the mistake as “pretty shocking.”
“We apologise to Yuki,” Mekies told Sky F1. “The program was a bit too tight… It was a choice between staying out and cooling down on the track or trying to cool down a bit better in the garage. We thought we would have the time to come back into the garage and get out again. It was only possible for a few cars to do that, and we missed the cut. So we owe Yuki an apology there.”
Meanwhile, Max Verstappen put in an impressive lap to secure pole position for the sprint race—his final sector making the crucial difference over Lando Norris’s strong Q3 time.
The incident highlights how tight timing and team strategy can make or break a driver’s qualifying effort, with Tsunoda unfortunately on the losing end of a crucial call this time.
