Despite the fact that Yuki Tsunoda finished outside the points again, Laurent Mekies believes the Japanese driver had a good weekend in Monza.

Of course, the fact that the popular driver chose to place himself on the outer extremities of the post-race team photo suggests that Tsunoda feels otherwise, but for the time being Mekies stands by him.

Qualifying tenth, 0.727s off his teammate's pace, Tsunoda came home thirteenth following clashes with Liam Lawson and Lewis Hamilton.

"I got distracted by Lawson, who made contact with me and that was quite big," said the Red Bull driver at race end. "I picked up damage and that was big enough to slow me down quite a lot, so very frustrating and very unnecessary for me.

"I haven't heard the specific details," he replied about the damage his car incurred, "but it's not even like a few points, it's really, really big.

"I was gaining one second per lap and he started last and he was not even fighting for points," the Japanese explained. "I don't know. If you're fighting for points, there's room that I can understand because even with a sister team, we're enemies and especially this position where I'm sitting now is probably my most high competition out of any world.

"But at the same time, there's a line, you can't cross it and I mean, what's the point? I was fighting for points and he wasn't. I don't know what to say."

As for Hamilton...

"Yeah, that was clear he squeezed," he said. "Probably even he didn't even make a corner at Turn 1, right? So I'm happy with what I did.

"I'm happy that I was able to avoid the collision. That was a good point actually! I'll raise myself. He didn't even make the corner so he dived right into me so I'll actually raise the point."

The ever-present gap in qualifying and the lack of points - 9 in 14 outings (including two Sprints) - don't bode well in terms of Tsunoda being retained for 2026, especially with Isack Hadjar continuing to impress, while some wonder if the Japanese will even make it to the end of this season.

For the moment, much like Christian Horner with Sergio Perez last year, Mekies is standing by his man.

"Today's race for Yuki is difficult to read," said the Frenchman, "because of the traffic in the first stint, damage in the second stint.

"But I look at yesterday's qualifying, I still qualify it as a good weekend," he insisted. "He was two tenths from Max in Q1. Max was not exactly slow this weekend and with a small deficit from the car, he was two tenths from Max in Q2.

"There is no doubt everybody is pushing 100% in Q2, and yes, the gap was bigger in Q3, but first he put the car in Q3, which is a very good performance, and second, he was first on the road in Q3. It didn't help as well, so I think short run pace was a very good sample for Yuki, long run pace, it's frustrating not to have a clean race day."

Asked if Tsunoda struggles more in races than qualifying, Mekies said: "Clean samples, because today was a poor sample.

"You know how it is, the races at the front are very clean, you get at least a good stint to read your performance. Here, it's very difficult to get anything out of today.

"First stint in traffic, second stint with car damage. If I look back at the last couple of races, it's quite similar. I think it is correct to say that we probably have more work to do on the race pace than on the qualifying pace with Yuki. But again, it's also why we are giving ourselves a bit more time."

"It's not easy," admitted Tsunoda, "but at the same time, you just have to do it.

"It's a tough situation," he added. "I think my qualifying is getting better and better. There's some positives."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Monza here.