Andrea Kimi Antonelli said he was concerned for his mechanics when he collided with Max Verstappen in the pits during the sprint race.
However Antonelli said it was clear Verstappen was not to blame for the collision. “What’s very important is [there’s] nothing to blame on Max because he just got released,” Antonelli told the official F1 channel. “So he respected the order.”The Red Bull driver was penalised 10 seconds after hitting Antonelli’s car as he left his pit box. The stewards ruled Red Bull released Verstappen unsafely and cleared the driver of any error.
“Car one [Verstappen] was released into the path of car 12 [Antonelli] which was arriving in the fast lane, causing a collision of the two cars,” the stewards noted. “The stewards acknowledge that the driver did everything he could to avoid the [incident] and therefore no penalty points are issued in this case.”
Antonelli said he saw Verstappen’s car moving into the fast lane as he approached his pit box. “What I did is, as soon as I saw him coming out I just tried to avoid the crash because definitely it could have been a really bad accident for the mechanics. So I’m happy nothing went wrong there.”
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was extremely unimpressed with what he saw. “If it was the main race that would be seriously annoying,” he told Sky.
“But I’m surprised about the total lack of judgement there because it wasn’t even close to releasing [him] without any security concerns. So somebody panicked there.”
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His opposite number at Red Bull, Christian Horner, said the incident was caused by “human error.”
Verstappen, who expressed his frustration on his radio after the collision, said afterwards: “I don’t even need to really explain it, it’s super clear. It’s not what you want to see.”
Red Bull previously had problems with their pit lane exit lights during the Bahrain Grand Prix. Verstappen and team mate Yuki Tsunoda were slow to leave their pit boxes due to problems with the team’s traffic lights.
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Carsten Nielsen (@carstenb)
3rd May 2025, 19:09
The once so sublime RedBull pitstop are getting messy, they are definitely not firing on all cylinders so far in 2025. Is the pressure of not winning getting to them?
Patrick (@anunaki)
3rd May 2025, 19:21
Well Jonathan Wheatley used to be in charge
w0o0dy (@w0o0dy)
3rd May 2025, 19:41
No idea as to the why, but the once so unbeatable pitcrew is turned into a 💩 show this year. If I were Max I would sit Horner down for a talk and say “I don’t care how you plan on doing it but this has to be fixed for tomorrow and needs to be tight untill the end of the Season.”
uzsjgb (@uzsjgb)
3rd May 2025, 19:47
Marko said on German Sky that a few members of the usual pit crew are sick.
SteveP
3rd May 2025, 23:40
This seems to be a series of pit crew missing due to family issues, sickness, etc.
What’s next? “The dog was sick on the controls” ?
There seems to be something seriously amiss in that team.
MV was blameless in this, but the penalty affects him.
ZoemDoef
4th May 2025, 10:50
It is hight time FIA stop penalising the drivers for “unsafe release” and start hitting the teams with monatary fines – under the budget cap. Unsafe release is out of the driver’s hands, but the team has FULL control thereof
anon
3rd May 2025, 20:09
@carstenb some have pointed towards Wheatley’s decision to leave the team, given his role in training pit crews and pit lane operations, and I guess it is inevitable that some will link the decline in performance to that.
However, as noted by other posters, Red Bull have had to temporarily replace some of their mechanics due to various issues, so there are probably some mechanics being forced to take on roles that they are not really experienced with.
Kribana (@krichelle)
3rd May 2025, 19:14
I don’t care with Red Bull scoring zero points. That deserves a bigger fine than just 10 seconds. Give the team a monetary fine or a grid drop for Verstappen. That lousy stupid human error forced Antonelli to do another lap for his pit stop.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
3rd May 2025, 19:22
The best thing about that release was just how unsafe it was. If Red Bull had been a moment later, Max would have gone in to the Antonelli’s rear axel and like said in commentary spin him around with people everywhere. That Kimi was able to abort his box and continue on shows at least someone knew what was going on. Incredibly unfair on him of course.
We’ve all seen some terrible releases (Alpine couldn’t even get both cars out the garage yesterday). People make mistakes, but that’s about as bad a release as you can see, on what looks like slippery concrete.
Kribana (@krichelle)
3rd May 2025, 19:43
This was lousy and idiotic from Red Bull. I want a monetary fine for this or a grid drop for Verstappen. I don’t care if they have got 0 points from the sprint.
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
3rd May 2025, 20:18
Should be a huge fine as the Mercedes pit crew was in extreme danger. I think a 1 race suspension is in order like they wanted after Silverstone a few years ago.
Arkles
4th May 2025, 13:34
Has anyone seen video of the pit stop lights from Max’s view. From all the views I can find it looks like the red light went off, which prompted max to move, but the green light never came on.