How a bizarre glitch ruined Yuki Tsunoda’s Dutch GP

Yuki Tsunoda’s Dutch Grand Prix unravelled in his final stint due to a highly unusual issue on his Red Bull Formula 1 car.

“We were locked into the wrong map after the final stop,” team principal Laurent Mekies explained. “He basically drove the final part with a really, really not friendly throttle map.”

Until 2020, F1 teams were free to switch engine and throttle mappings throughout a race weekend, which allowed them to unleash maximum power from the unit when needed – whether that be for a flying lap in qualifying or at a decisive moment in the race.

But in 2020 the FIA clamped down on these ‘party modes’, as Mercedes once cheekily dubbed them. Since then, only one engine mode has been permitted from qualifying to the end of the race. Drivers may only change it in three cases: when the car is stationary with the engine off, in an officially wet race, or in the pitlane.

Because a different mapping matters more from a standstill than in race trim, drivers routinely switch to ‘launch mode’ as they enter the pitlane, then return to standard mode after their pitstops.

That is when things went wrong for Tsunoda. “It’ll be strat 12 in the pitlane, strat 12,” race engineer Richard Wood reminded him on pit entry. And after the stop: “Strat 11, strat 11.” But Tsunoda apparently failed to execute the switch immediately.

“Okay, so we are stuck in the pedal map,” he was told. “It’s a very flat pedal up between 15% and 40%.” In other words, throttle response between 15 and 40 % pedal travel was now completely different – optimised for a launch, not for sustained racing.

Visibly agitated, Tsunoda fiddled with the red rotary switch in his cockpit after leaving the pits, only to realise something was very wrong. “I don’t have power,” he radioed. The reply came back: “You do not have power until 40% throttle. It’s a very flat pedal map. We cannot fix it on track. Try and get used to it under the safety car just now.”

Changing it outside the pitlane was impossible. Mekies explained: “Basically, when you are in the pitlane, you are changing maps. And if you don’t change back, you are locked into it for the rest of the time. So that’s what happened.”

Tsunoda had pitted on lap 54 of 72, running 13th behind Lance Stroll. He eventually finished ninth, just 4.1 seconds behind the Aston Martin. His engineer praised him afterwards: “That wasn’t easy, that last stint without throttle shift. You did a really good job learning in the safety car.”

For Tsunoda, though, it was little consolation. “At some point the safety car was faster than my car,” he fumed. “Our team did a fantastic job to minimise damage and obviously went much better. But still, the car lost a lot of performance. And still, I was in P11. So it was a good execution for me.”

At least Tsunoda scored his first points since Imola in May – though satisfaction was limited. “I felt like everything was there, it was against me,” he said. “The first safety car didn’t help at all. And the second safety car as well. I mean, the people I was fighting with, they ended up P5, P6. But even in the last stint, I was about to try and make positions and I had those kinds of issues. It was not easy to even score points there.

“To be honest, normally P9 you don’t feel special, but I think it’s something that gives me confidence for the future. And yeah, today was not easy at all.”

Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing, Laurent Mekies, Racing Bulls Team Principal

Photo by: Kym Illman / Getty Images

Mekies noted that Tsunoda would likely have finished seventh under normal circumstances: “Before that, he was in front of Antonelli. Yuki was a bit unfortunate with the first safety car timing, because he was one of two cars – it was him and Charles, I think – that had pitted before.

“So he lost, like, four or five positions just because everybody got a cheap stop. Honestly, there is not much you can say on the pace, because he was probably glued in traffic for most of the race.”

Additional reporting by Stuart Codling and Ronald Vording