During Saturday’s final practice session in Abu Dhabi, championship leader Lando Norris had a heart-in-mouth moment when he almost ploughed into the back of Yuki Tsunoda’s Red Bull at high speed. Rounding a fast corner, Norris suddenly found the Japanese driver crawling along the middle of the racing line, forcing him to take drastic evasive action to avoid a massive crash.
The FIA stewards wasted no time investigating the near-miss and quickly, after reviewing telemetry, video, and team radio, slammed Red Bull with a €10,000 fine for failing to warn Tsunoda that Norris was closing rapidly on a hot lap. The stewards ruled that Red Bull had “ample time” to inform their driver but only passed on information about other fast cars, leaving Tsunoda oblivious to the McLaren bearing down on him.
Tsunoda himself escaped with a formal warning, but the punishment was aimed squarely at the team. The official document stated that Red Bull had misinterpreted Norris’s earlier pace and should have seen on the GPS tracker that the championship leader was suddenly on a flying lap and gaining fast.
With Norris holding a 12-point lead going into the title-deciding race, any incident that could have taken him out of the weekend would have been catastrophic. Thankfully both cars survived unscathed and will line up for qualifying and Sunday’s race, but the scare served as a stark reminder of how quickly the championship picture could have changed.
Red Bull’s wallet is €10,000 lighter, and the team has been put on notice heading: with everything on the line in Abu Dhabi, there is zero margin for error.
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