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VShristian Horner appeared to blame AlphaTauri – and by extension Red Bull junior – driver Yuki Tsunoda for his team’s woes.

Alan Baldwin of Reuters reports:

Tsunoda has been accused of destroying the last flight towers of Verstappen and the Mexican Sergio Perez at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

The Japanese had already suffered an engine penalty which would downshift him to the back of the grid but reached the final phase of qualifying in order to help his teammate Pierre Gasly with an aerodynamic tow.

Tsunoda, running slowly at the time, derailed to pull away as Perez attempted his final throwing turn, the Honda protege kicking up dust that then distracted the Mexican.

Verstappen, behind, was also forced to slow down.

The Dutch driver, who qualified third and leads Mercedes Lewis Hamilton by 12 points with five races to go, exclaimed over the team’s radio: “Unbelievable, such a stupid idiot”.

“I think we got Tsunoda,” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said on Sky Sports TV.

“Both riders were on their last lap. Max was ahead of two and a half tenths and I think Checo (Perez) was just under two tenths and I don’t understand why he (Tsunoda) was just sailing at that part of the circuit.

“So it’s disappointing because it affected both drivers. They are both quite annoyed.”

Verstappen, who will line up behind Mercedes pair of Valtteri Bottas and Hamilton, said he had a good lap time.

“There were two guys leaving so I thought there was going to be a yellow flag so I backed off and the lap was of course destroyed,” he said.

Perez, the home hero, said Tsunoda was leaving at Turn 11 injured his knees.

“He wasn’t a distraction, it was that I was too close to him and it forced me to brake. Once I did that I lost my support and I think I did. had a lot of dirty air, unfortunately I lost the car and I lost my turn, “he said

The first lap is long and the good thing for Red Bull is that Verstappen is only one place behind Hamilton instead of two. There could be an opportunity for Mercedes to design something in Hamilton’s favor at some point in the race, but that will have to be beyond the first lap.

The race starts at 7pm GMT and we’ll be there for all the preparation, live updates and reactions.

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