Tsunoda blames himself for 'stupid mistake' in heavy crash that halted Imola qualifying

Yuki Tsunoda slammed himself for making "a stupid mistake" that led to the big crash that delayed qualifying for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

The Red Bull driver was on his first timed lap of Q1 when his car became unsettled over a curb at the Villeneuve chicane and quickly snapped away from him. Tsunoda spun at high speed and skipped across the gravel backwards, with the car become airborne before it hit the tire barrier.

After that first bit of contact, the car was flipped upside down onto the barrier as it rotated through the air, also hitting a light panel on the outside of the track, before coming to rest the right way up still within the confines of the circuit.

Tsunoda was quick to climb out of his car and walk away from the wreckage, but was then taken to the medical center for precautionary checks. The session was delayed for 12 minutes while the car was recovered and repairs took place to the tire conveyor belt and light panel.

“I'm OK, thankfully, but at the same time it’s very frustrating how I ended up in such an early stage, especially in a very unnecessary situation,” Tsunoda said.

“[The performance has been] kind of up and down. Some sessions I felt OK, some sessions suddenly dropped a lot. FP3 ... to be honest it was a big mystery how I ended up. Obviously, not being able to put it all together, but at the same time it was pretty poor pace.

“We didn't know exactly why, but we made a lot of changes and it seemed to have felt pretty good in the first turn, 2, Turn 3, and then crashed immediately after. So, yeah, just very ashamed. I feel like the car was quite there and just put myself into the wall with such a stupid mistake.”

At the resumption, Franco Colapinto went to the end of the pit lane before a restart time was confirmed, an infringement that earned him a one-place grid penalty -- the same punishment the Mercedes drivers received for a similar incident in Bahrain.

Colapinto then crashed himself at the end of Q1, spinning into the barrier at the Tamburello chicane and bringing the session to an early end. The start of Q2 was delayed significantly as the barrier was repaired and then race control reviewed whether Oliver Bearman’s lap time should stand, eventually deeming it inadmissible and seeing the Haas driver eliminated.