F1 stewards confirm British GP penalty over Max Verstappen and Kimi Antonelli crash.
Kimi Antonelli has been handed a grid drop for the British Grand Prix for causing the first-lap smash which took Max Verstappen out of Red Bull’s home race. The Dutchman was nothing more than a passenger as rookie Antonelli locked up his tyres and smashed into the side of his car at turn three.
Verstappen was initially unimpressed, jumping on the radio to tell his Red Bull race engineer Simon Rennie that he had been “hit like crazy” and slamming the “f***ing idiots” who caused the collision. At that point, he did not know that it was Antonelli who had taken him out.
He quickly calmed down, accepting the teenager’s immediate apology and making it clear he would not be holding it against Antonelli. “Every driver has made a mistake like that. No-one does that on purpose,” said Verstappen, reflecting on the incident.
Antonelli was also unable to continue, having damaged his Mercedes beyond repair. And, because they could not punish him in that race as a result of his retirement, the stewards have elected to hand the youngster a three-place grid drop for next Sunday’s Silverstone race.
The stewards said: “The driver of car 12 [Antonelli] locked up the rear brakes into turn three and collided with car 1 [Verstappen]. In the hearing the driver admitted that he made a mistake as he locked up the rear wheels while using his regular braking point, but also pointed out that he needed to avoid a collision with car 30 in front of him and released the brakes for a short period of time to do so.
Taking evasive action led to the car having less grip on the dirty inside line and therefore he was not able to decelerate the car in a way to avoid the collision with car 1. The stewards determine that, although the incident happened in lap one, no other cars influenced the incident and the driver of car 12 is fully at fault.
The stewards decided not to apply the usual more forgiving approach for first-lap incidents in this case. Still, they admitted that it wasn’t a reckless dive into the corner, but rather a consequence of the driver locking up and trying to avoid a collision. Since the driver couldn’t continue the race, a grid penalty has been issued for the next Grand Prix.
Antonelli seemed resigned to the decision and explained, “I didn’t brake too late, but when I hit the brakes hard, the rear wheels locked up and I lost control. I tried to avoid Liam Lawson, but by then the front locked too, and the car kept gaining speed. The crash couldn’t be avoided.”
He added, “I’m really sorry to the team and to Max—he was just an innocent victim in all of this. It was a big error on my part. Now we focus on the next race at Silverstone and getting back to the kind of performance I had in Canada.”
Meanwhile, George Russell salvaged some points for Mercedes with a fifth-place finish. Red Bull, however, had a rough day, with Yuki Tsunoda finishing last among the classified drivers—two laps behind race winner Lando Norris.
