Tsunoda explains what happened with early Q1 spin that leaves him on the back row for the French GP

Yuki Tsunoda's last act in qualifying at the last race in Azerbaijan was to bring out a red flag after he crashed in Q3 at Turn 3 in Baku – which ended the session given there was so little time remaining on the clock.

And his first act in qualifying at the French Grand Prix was also to trigger a red flag, after he spun coming out of Turn 1 in the opening minutes of Q1, rotating his AlphaTauri before sliding backwards into the barriers.

Tsunoda was then unable to find a gear so was forced to climb out of the car, while the marshals brought out a truck to get it back to the pits. It meant he played no further part in the qualifying session, and having set no lap time, will start Sunday's race from the back of the grid, at the stewards' discretion.

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After qualifying Tsunoda explained what happened, and said he was hopeful he hadn't damaged the gearbox when he slid into the barriers, despite being unable to engage a gear after the incident.

"I went to the inside of the yellow kerb too much in Turn 1... and when I applied the throttle I think the rear tyre was still on the yellow kerb and I span out. I tried to brake as much as I could to avoid the barrier but it was like ice skating and I went backwards.

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"The impact was quite low so the gearbox is not damaged, but we’ll have to see. Like I said, the impact was quite low so I thought I could manage to get out from there but the gear was not working somehow so we have to check.

"I’m going to start from the back and here it’s quite hard to overtake so I’ll just have to push hard as much as I can," he added.