Autobayng News Team
Yuki Tsunoda said his penalty for repeatedly changing his line in front of Lando Norris during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was another example of the stewards making a “strange” decision.
The Red Bull driver collected a five-second time penalty for making multiple changes of direction while defending his position from Lando Norris.
His race engineer Richard Wood warned him he was about to be caught by Norris, who was fighting for the championship with Tsunoda’s team mate Max Verstappen. Tsunoda replied: “I know what to do, so leave [it] to me.”
However the stewards were unhappy Tsunoda changed his line more than once as Norris moved in to pass him between turns five and six. They gave Tsunoda a five-second time penalty for the manoeuvre and issued the same penalty to two other drivers for similar moves on the subsequent straight.
Tsunoda said the stewards made a “questionable” call. They also gave him a penalty point on his licence for the incident, putting him on a total of eight for the current 12 months.
“Some strange penalty once again,” Tsunoda told the official Formula 1 channel after the race. “I guess as usual for them, to be honest.”
Norris passed him with all four wheels off the track, but the stewards did not penalise the McLaren driver, ruling he went off because of Tsunoda’s changes of position. “The driver of car four [Norris] overtook car 22 [Tsunoda] off track however this occurred because the driver of car 22 made multiple moves defending his position against car four,” they stated.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
The McLaren driver said he expected Tsunoda would make it difficult for him to pass and the pair came close to colliding.
“We knew from before that Tsunoda might try and do it – try and hold me up and make my life difficult like Perez did to Lewis [Hamilton] just a few seasons ago. So a lot of that was in our script and estimations already.
“But I managed to get through pretty quickly. It was a bit close – it got pretty close. It’s crazy thinking about it, because [you] do think about it straight away, you’re like, ‘Damn, if that was five centimetres closer – it’s over.’”
Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said Tsunoda’s penalty was “a surprise, but it’s always the hardest job in the world for the stewards to come up with something in [these] situations.”
“Ultimately it did not affect the the the result of the championship,” he added, “so we just keep the win [for Verstappen] and well done to Lando for the title.”
Yuki Tsunoda’s penalty points
| Date | Event | Session | Infringement | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14/6/2025 | Canadian Grand Prix | Third practice | ‘Car 22 overtook Car 81 under red flag’ | 2 |
| 29/6/2025 | Austrian Grand Prix | Grand prix | ‘Causing a collision with Car 43 in Turn 4.’ | 2 |
| 6/7/2025 | British Grand Prix | Grand prix | ‘Car 22 collided with Car 87 in Turn 6.’ | 1 |
| 9/11/2025 | Brazilian Grand Prix | Grand prix | ‘Car 22 collided with Car 18 in Turn 8.’ | 2 |
| 7/12/2025 | Abu Dhabi Grand Prix | Grand prix | Made multiple changes of direction defending his position | 1 |
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories – and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:
2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
- Norris proud he has ‘won the title my way, trying to be a good person’
- Verstappen explains why he didn’t try to back up Norris into other cars
- Tsunoda complains stewards gave him a ‘strange penalty – as usual for them’
- Verstappen hits out at suggestion his collision with Russell cost him the title
- Verstappen says losing title by two points “looks painful” but he’s “not too sad”
