Antonelli, two points thrown away: he gets penalized and drops from 4th to 6th

Costly carelessness The Miami Sprint race ended decidedly badly for Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who had started from second position on the grid and had the ambition of gaining further important points in the standings over teammate George Russell. The Italian got off to a bad start, slipped to fourth position and after losing the duel with Charles Leclerc – which lasted for all of the first laps – he seemed to have more or less calmly accepted the position at the foot of the podium which would still have allowed him to gain a point in the standings over Russell. On the last lap, however, the championship leader committed a serious oversight: after being warned by the stewards that he would receive a penalty the next time he exceeded the track limits, Antonelli did not maintain a sufficiently high concentration and committed a further violation of the track limits which triggered the 5-second sanction from the stewards. Thus, despite having finished fourth under the checkered flag, the Bolognese was classified as sixth, losing the position both to Russell – and by just a tenth – also to Max Verstappen. Russell thanks Antonelli’s mistake was ‘free’ in the sense that it occurred without there being any pressure behind him from Russell, who was about four seconds behind. However, the Englishman himself was the greatest beneficiary of his teammate’s penalty, going from losing a point to gaining two. The history of F1 has taught us how much, in a balanced championship, even these smallest details can make the difference at the end of the season.

Automobile Magazine – F1 English News
2026-05-03 03:11:00