3 teams Formula 1 completely screwed over in Melbourne

Three teams Formula 1 screwed over: Honorable mention – AlphaTauri

This one wasn’t as painful as Haas and Nico Hulkenberg losing what should have been their first podium finish, but it hurt nonetheless. Following the restart chaos, Yuki Tsunoda was scored in fifth place.

Fifth place would not have been his career-high finish, as he finished fourth in the 2021 season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (following another interesting closing sequence), but a fifth place finish — and 10 points — for a driver and team not expected to do much scoring throughout the 2023 season would have been massive.

Instead, Tsunoda was dropped to 11th place (two spots up from 13th because of the Alpine crash), putting him in position for a fourth straight finish just one position shy of scoring points.

Fortunately for him, he was able to take advantage of Carlos Sainz Jr.’s (ridiculous) penalty and score a point with a 10th place finish, preventing AlphaTauri from leaving Melbourne as the one and only team without any points through three races.

But instead of being tied for last place in the constructor standings, AlphaTauri should be in sixth or seventh place (depending on your view of how the rest of the finish was handled), and instead of being tied for 16th in the driver standings, Tsunoda should be in the top 10.