Isack Hadjar believes he could have beaten Yuki Tsunoda to the final point in the Miami Grand Prix but made too many mistakes at the end of the race.
The stewards handed Tsunoda a five-second penalty during the race, which was added to his time at the end of the race. As the race neared its end Hadjar, who was running 11th behind Tsunoda, closed within five seconds of his rival at times, but dropped too far behind his rival on the last lap.
“I knew, I could see the delta on my steering wheel and I was really pushing in the car,” Hadjar told the official F1 channel after the race. “But it was not enough.
“That last lap I wanted too much to close the gap and there was a few mistakes here and there, so it’s really frustrating. I feel a bit down.”
Tsunoda, who began the year as Hadjar’s team mate at Racing Bulls, said his rival pushed him hard at the end of the race.
“Certainly my old team mate today didn’t make my life easy,” he said. “The last 10 laps he picked up pace quite a lot and I was pushing it up and he came back so that was really tough. But I just got to do what I got to do and maximise my pace.”
The stewards issued his penalty after he broke the 80kph pit lane speed limit by 5.6kph. “Obviously it was a bit unnecessary for myself, that made my life much more difficult with the five seconds [penalty],” said Tsunoda.
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The Red Bull driver took the chequered flag half a minute behind his team mate Max Verstappen and over a minute behind race winner Oscar Piastri. Tsunoda said Red Bull will have to look into their loss of performance in Miami.
“I’m happy that I was able to score points but at the same time not happy with the pace I had,” said Tsunoda. “I think as a team we struggled for overall pace, I think not just me, so something that we have to look at.”
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