AlphaTauri finds answers to Tsunoda's crabbing F1 car in Baku

Tsunoda was forced to retire from the Saturday race in Azerbaijan after a strange opening two laps to the sprint.

The Japanese brushed the wall on the opening lap after clashing with team-mate Nyck de Vries and, as he returned to the pits, his right rear tyre flew off the rim – briefly rolling down the track.

Having made it back to the pits for a change of tyres, Tsunoda then faced fresh drama when he returned to the race, as he found his right rear wheel and suspension were out of kilter.

His car crabbed its way slowly around the lap before he came in to the pits to retire.

AlphaTauri was fined by the FIA for an unsafe release after the governing body felt that the team could have done more to check the car was safe before releasing it.

However, AlphaTauri’s own investigations this week have concluded that the suspension was intact when the car left the pits, and that a rear track rod failed only as load was put through it on the right hander of the pit exit.

Speaking to Autosport ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, AlphaTauri’s head of vehicle performance Guillaume Dezoteux explained that the analysis afterwards painted a slightly different picture to what it felt had happened on the day.

“We did a lot of investigation on the sprint race,” he said. “And actually, when Yuki stopped, the car wasn't damaged and was safe to release.

Tsunoda also suffered a puncture earlier in the weekend

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“We have seen that the rear right suspension failed at the pit exit, and then the car ended up like you saw on TV with the three wheels.”

Dezoteux explained that mechanics did conduct a thorough check of the suspension during the pitstop and found nothing wrong – which was confirmed from the data afterwards.

“In the pitstop, we did have a look,” he said. “We couldn't see any damage and we saw in the data and in the video footage that this [the suspension breaking] only happened later.

“There was no motion nor degree of freedom of the rear suspension at the time, hence we decided to send out the car.

“That was a bit of a relief, for sure for us, because it's always difficult to manage live this kind of situation. And we were happy to see that, in the end, we were able to make the judgment call as it was never our intention to send it out on three wheels.”

Team progress

Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri AT04

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

AlphaTauri has had a difficult start to the season, but has started to make some progress – with Tsunoda getting in to Q3 in Baku and bringing home a top-10 finish.

Dezoteux said that the characteristics of the Azerbaijan track played to his team's 2023 car, which could also bode well for its chances in Miami.

“It is a track layout that favours good power unit performance and an [aero] efficient package,” he said. “There is not a very high aero load sensitivity there, and that helped us.

“We have a good mechanical grip and, on the set-up side, we went for a car quite compliant and easier to drive for the drivers to try to help them quickly ramp up in this track.

"That paid off with Yuki, but it was difficult for Nyck because there was a very small amount of free practice and the few laps you get, everything is aimed at going into qualifying.”