Team mate Yuki Tsunoda, meanwhile, had his work cut out for the race in Belgium after starting from the back of the grid owing to engine penalties. The Japanese driver opted for a one-stop strategy and ended the event in 17th, which subsequently became 16th following Russell’s disqualification.
Speaking after the race, Tsunoda joked: “Considering I started from Zandvoort, I think ending up P17 is not bad! But yeah, all race we didn’t have pace overall.
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“Seems like there’s something in the car, from what I heard from the engineer. I didn’t hear exact feedback yet, but hopefully we can sort it out, because throughout the week I was struggling quite a lot with the car and everything.
“Also [the] strategy didn’t work, but yeah, starting from that position [we] had to do something [to] gamble but it didn’t pay off. Hopefully main priority is just to learn something from this race, especially [because] I wanted to make sure our car is all aligned because it wasn’t. I don’t think it’s still fully fixed yet, before Zandvoort hopefully we can sort out everything.”
For now, Tsunoda’s focus is on using the summer break to ready himself for the races ahead in the second portion of the year.
“I think just rest, I would say,” he said of his plans. “Rest and obviously prepare for the second half of the season, for the physical side as well.”
