Did Tsunoda try to get Norris penalised – and was the stewards’ call unprecedented?

The most critical moment which could have swung the outcome of yesterday’s championship-deciding race did not involve two of the title contenders.

Lando Norris’s lap 23 pass on Yuki Tsunoda – the team mate of his championship rival Max Verstappen – was undoubtedly the most controversial point of the race.

The stewards announced two investigations after Norris put all four wheels over the white line on the straight between turns five and six as he overtook Yuki Tsunoda. Crucially for Norris’s title hopes, he was cleared, while Tsunoda was given a five-second time penalty.

In the stewards’ view, Tsunoda made too many changes of direction while trying to keep Norris behind. They ruled Norris left the track because of Tsunoda’s weaving and therefore chose not to penalise the McLaren driver, who went on to claim the third place he needed to win the world championship.

Tsunoda’s penalty was fairly conventional: three similar penalties were given to other drivers in the same race.

But the stewards’ decision to absolve Norris was unusual. This was partly because the incident itself was uncommon: he faced a driver who was breaking the rules by weaving, successfully overtook him, but went off the track himself while doing so.

Norris was only able to drive off the track while passing Tsunoda because, unlike many other straights on the F1 calendar, this one offered enough asphalt beyond the white line for him to do so. At another track he would more likely have found grass.

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So while the stewards’ ruling on Norris was unusual, so were the circumstances. They reached their decision by referring to the Driving Standards Guidelines which notes drivers will not be considered to have exceeded track limits “if a driver has been considered to be ‘forced off’ by another car” (among other reasons).

The stewards had already ruled Tsunoda did force Norris off, so one call led to the other. But Tsunoda was unhappy with the decision taken against him, which he called “crazy”.

Tsunoda’s penalty was the second of four instances of drivers being penalised for defensive moves in the race. Liam Lawson had already been penalised for crowding Oliver Bearman off the track on the approach to turn nine, though the stewards termed this “erratic driving”. The positions of the cars and barriers meant Bearman was unable to pass Lawson off-track, as Norris did to Tsunoda, though had he done so the stewards would have had to let the move stand in order for their decisions on the two incidents to be consistent.

Lawson was given the same five-second time penalty and single penalty point on his licence Tsunoda received. So did two other drivers who were judged to have made more than one defensive move between turns eight and nine later in the race: Lance Stroll, on Carlos Sainz Jnr, and Bearman, whose weaving was particularly egregious when Stroll appeared in his mirrors. Stroll weaved to prevent Sainz re-passing him while Bearman tried unsuccessfully to prevent Stroll passing him on the outside into turn nine.

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The key difference between these incidents and Tsunoda’s was that he made his move on Norris on the earlier straight approaching turn six.

No doubt Tsunoda felt his initial change of direction was intended to prevent Norris gaining a slipstream on him, which the Driving Standards Guidelines make an allowance for: “Moves intended to break the slipstream of a following car when the following car is a safe distance behind, considering relative speeds and position on the track, may be acceptable.” The stewards did not interpret his move this way, perhaps because Norris was already so close to him coming out of turn five – within DRS range.

However no analysis of Tsunoda’s move and penalty would be complete without acknowledging the championship situation. While Tsunoda had a clear right to defend his position from Norris regardless of these circumstances, it was of heightened importance as Red Bull needed to ensure Norris did not finish in the top three for Verstappen to win the championship.

Red Bull used Tsunoda’s predecessor Sergio Perez to great effect to delay another of Verstappen’s championship rivals at the same track four years ago. Tsunoda has played the same role already this year and made it clear before yesterday’s race he was prepared to do the same again to help Verstappen.

“I’ll keep [trying to] help him as much as possible also [in the] next race,” he said after qualifying. “With that, probably most likely [it] won’t be a straightforward strategy for me.”

His race engineer Richard Wood gave him regular prompts about Norris’s progress during the race. “All you can when he catches,” said Wood. “I know what to do so leave it to me,” Tsunoda replied.

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When Norris closed on the Red Bull, Tsunoda moved off the racing line into the middle of the straight, back onto the racing line and back into the middle of the straight. Then, as Norris committed to overtaking him on the left, Tsunoda moved that way again.

This was clearly an attempt to force Norris off the track. Had Norris backed off at this point in order to avoid overtaking Tsunoda his time loss would have been huge. His alternative was to go off the track and risk a penalty.

Was this Red Bull’s game plan all along? They needed a way to get Norris out of the top three, knew before the race that using Verstappen to delay him was risky and unlikely to work and probably foresaw McLaren’s strategy which made that even less viable.

So did they instead use Tsunoda – in his final grand prix appearance, with no reason to fear collecting more penalty points – to provoke Norris into collecting a time penalty? Or was Tsunoda simply trying to ‘do a Perez’ and pushed it too far? Only those involved can say.

But at best, Tsunoda’s move amounted to crudely forcing a driver off the track when their car was significantly quicker in a straight line. If Norris hadn’t had the room to avoid the Red Bull because of the run-off at that point on the corner, this could have resulted in a huge crash.

The combination of the championship situation and the unusual characteristics of the Yas Marina circuit meant whatever the stewards decided was likely to be unprecedented. Whatever they thought of Tsunoda’s motives, they were right not to set a precedent that teams can use championship contenders’ team mates to weave in front of rivals and push them off the track to trigger a penalty.

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2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

• Norris vs Verstappen vs Piastri: Full radio transcript from their championship showdown
• Norris’s engineer told him Tsunoda’s move was “classic Red Bull s***housing”
• Norris ‘wanted Oscar to win the race – that would have made me even happier’
• Did Tsunoda try to get Norris penalised – and was the stewards’ call unprecedented?
• Norris expects Piastri ‘will beat me and be world champion in the future’

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