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Yuki Tsunoda

Two F1 drivers consigned to pit lane start for São Paulo sprint

The Interlagos grid will have 18 cars on it for the 24-lap sprint

Tsunoda Q Mexico
Article
To news overview © XPBimages

Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda will join Williams' Carlos Sainz in starting from the pit lane for the São Paulo sprint.

Tsunoda endured a miserable day of running on Friday at Interlagos, initially sliding off the track eight minutes into the sole practice session, clipping a barrier with the front-left wheel before being spun around and hitting a different barrier with the rear-left.

That resulted in the Japanese driver missing a crucial 28 minutes of the hour-long session whilst repairs were carried out on his RB21.

In qualifying for the sprint, Tsunoda lacked pace, and could only manage 18th on the grid, whilst team-mate Max Verstappen was second quickest in SQ1, with the four-time F1 champion lining up sixth.

Ahead of the sprint, Red Bull has opted to change the rear wing on Tsunoda's car and make suspension set-up changes out of parc fermé, resulting in a pit-lane start.

Sainz, who qualified 20th and last after making a mistake into Turn 1 on his final hot lap in SQ1, also starts from the pit lane as, like Tsunoda, changes were made to the suspension set-up on his car.

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