Nico Hulkenberg was blown away by the way Yuki Tsunoda made up several places during the third and final standing start of the Australian Grand Prix.
The Melbourne race was littered with incidents and several crashes – evidenced by the fact only 12 of the 20 drivers finished. Four of those eight who retired did so after that last standing start on the penultimate lap of the race, before the red flags were waved for the third time.
Fernando Alonso had been spun by fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz, though he was able to carry on. Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon were not so lucky as the Alpine drivers crashed into each other, while Logan Sargeant and Nyck de Vries were beached in the gravel after the American hit the back of his fellow Formula 1 rookie.
Amid all that chaos, the rest of the drivers had to be very quick to react to all the danger around them and pick the small gaps they needed to find to avoid being taken out themselves. Tsunoda did that expertly with a superb display of his skill.
After getting an excellent launch off the line, the AlphaTauri ace roared past two other cars before he even reached the first corner and managed to get clear of Ocon moments before Gasly veered across the track and into the side of his team-mate.
The race was red flagged again and all the cars still running made their way back to the pit lane. While sat there in his Haas, Hulkenberg spotted that the AlphaTauri was behind him and couldn't believe that the Japanese racer had managed to make so much progress in the few seconds they had been racing.
"Tsunoda is behind me for real?" the German asked his race engineer over the radio, with the note of surprise in his voice unmistakeable. After that was confirmed to him, he added: "S***, so he made up a lot of places too, didn't he?
Much to Haas' frustration, the stewards made the decision to restart the race in the same order as the previous, minus those cars which had crashed out. That meant the progress the likes of Hulkenberg and Tsunoda had made was cancelled out.
Both, however, still finished in the points. Hulkenberg was classified seventh after Sainz's penalty, continuing his fine form since returning to the grid. And Tsunoda earned his first point of the season, with that punishment for the Ferrari star sparing the Japanese racer from the agony of a third consecutive 11th-placed finish.
