The Red Bull Racing crew look set to have a long night thanks to a crash by Yuki Tsunoda late in Free Practice 2 ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Tsunoda issued an apology to the team in the aftermath, but it won’t be the result the Japanese driver was hoping.

Yuki Tsunoda labels Saudi FP2 crash a ‘shame’

Yuki Tsunoda is only kicking off his third grand prix weekend as part of the Red Bull Racing team, having taken over the seat from Liam Lawson.

Lawson’s demotion back to Racing Bulls came largely due to his inexperience, which made it difficult for the Kiwi to adapt to the extremely challenging RB21.

Thus far, Tsunoda has done well to ease into the seat and took home points for the team in Bahrain — something that Lawson had unfortunately been unable to do.

Hopes were high for Tsunoda heading into this weekend; he told media on Thursday that he was growing more comfortable with the car all the time, and felt that he was adapting well.

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With under nine minutes on the clock in FP2, though, Tsunoda brushed against the inside wall at the final hairpin leading onto the main straight.

Knocked out of shape, the RB21 clattered right into the wall.

“Just turning too much and clipped the inside wall and just had damage,” Tsunoda told F1TV after the session.

“After that, just no control. Apologies to the team; pace was looking good, so it’s a shame.”

As far as the rest of the session went, Tsunoda noted that “the qualifying [simulation] lap was pretty good. A bit compromised with [tyre] warm up, but so far pretty OK.

“I had a limited time on the long run which I caused by myself [with the crash] so I can’t really complain. It’s not definitely not how I wanted to end up, that’s for sure.

“The short runs are okay, I just compromised a bit with the warm-up, so there’s a bit more [lap time] there.”

Lando Norris of McLaren ended the FP2 session at the top of the charts, with Tsunoda setting the sixth-fastest time despite his crash.

Read next: Saudi Arabian GP: Norris edges Piastri in FP2 as Tsunoda crashes out for Red Bull