F1 fans left in disbelief at £1.5m-a-year driver’s ‘catastrophic’ strategy during the Australian Grand Prix

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It’s going to be very hard to top the 2025 Australian Grand Prix when it comes to Formula 1 season openers in the future.

On the face of it, Lando Norris led from start to finish ahead of Max Verstappen to take the lead in the drivers’ championship.

Meanwhile, Mercedes are level on points with McLaren at the top of the team standings after a brilliant weekend for George Russell and the best-performing rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

However, the conditions during the race ended up deciding much of the order and made every rookie’s start to the season even more difficult.

Racing Bulls were without one of their drivers before the race even started after Isack Hadjar crashed during the formation lap.

Jack Doohan and Carlos Sainz didn’t last much longer, while Fernando Alonso, Gabriel Bortoleto and Liam Lawson also retired from the race after hitting the barriers.

The final safety car – triggered by Bortoleto and Lawson crashing on the same lap – had a huge impact on the final results.

Every team had to gamble on when to change tyres and while some made the correct call – such as McLaren and Mercedes – others struggled.

Max Verstappen could have won the Australian Grand Prix if he pitted a lap earlier according to Martin Brundle, while Ferrari completely messed up Lewis Hamilton’s first race for the team.

However, Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly both finished outside the points after having brilliant weekends and the £1.5m-a-year Japanese driver’s inability to secure a top-10 finish left plenty of fans irate after the race.

F1 fans furious as Racing Bulls strategy costs Yuki Tsunoda points at the Japanese Grand Prix

Tsunoda was comfortably running in the points before the final round of pit stops and would have challenged Alex Albon for a fourth-place finish had he been brought in on the right lap.

However, he was left out alongside the two Ferrari drivers but was clearly struggling and by the time he changed onto intermediate tyres, it was too late.

One fan commented on Tsunoda’s strategy and said: “Catastrophic strategy from VCARB today. Threw away very good points for Tsunoda.”

Another fan added: “They did the Ferrari strategy, and that is NEVER the way to go,” while another spectator commented: “Serious mishap on their end. And also the same with Ferrari.”

READ MORE: Racing Bulls driver Yuki Tsunoda’s life outside F1 from height to parents

Fans couldn’t believe Tsunoda had missed out on such a positive result, with one comment stating: “Man, he had just overtaken Leclerc on track for P4 before the rain, if they just did a normal strategy he could’ve easily finished there where Albon was.”

“The strategy is just slow – the correct decisions are never made and communicated to Yuki in time,” another comment read, while one fan was particularly annoyed that this scenario keeps happening at Red Bull’s sister team, stating: “Another year, another messed up strategy by VCARB.”

Finally, Tsunoda’s career prospects were brought into focus, with a final fan suggesting: “If he had a half-decent strategist, he’d be in a Red Bull already”

Yuki Tsunoda explains ‘too late’ final pit stop at the Australian Grand Prix

A dejected Tsunoda was asked about the race in his post-race interview and said: “The timing of the pit didn’t go our way today, it was too late and suddenly I dropped to P11 after the Safety Car. The pace was there and we didn’t make many mistakes, until the last bit of rain. I did what I can, I was pretty happy with how my performance was.

“We’ll definitely revise what happened and learn from this for the future. We need to make sure we’re not making the same mistakes, especially with the field being so tight this year, every single point is very important.

“It’s not ideal, but we can take a lot of positives from this weekend; we had pace and if we can maximise performance, we can have a good race weekend, we’ll just have to keep performing like this and come back strong.”

READ MORE: All to know about Racing Bulls from team principal to Red Bull affiliation

Hadjar needed to be consoled by Lewis Hamilton’s father after his early crash and someone may need to have a word with Tsunoda too after today.

He’s just seen the likes of Williams, Aston Martin and Sauber all score decent points which could be crucial in the constructors’ championship this season.

With Tsunoda’s future in F1 on the line, the last thing he needs is to be let down by his strategists on the pit wall.