Andrea Kimi Antonelli has been given a three-place grid drop for the next race after crashing into Max Verstappen on the first lap of the Austrian Grand Prix.
Verstappen suffered his first retirement since last year’s Australian Grand Prix, 31 races ago, after being hit by Antonelli. The Mercedes driver will serve his penalty at next week’s British Grand Prix.Antonelli ran deep into turn three as the race began. He dived to the inside of the corner but was unable to avoid hitting Verstappen’s Red Bull. Both drivers retired on the spot.
“I got hit like crazy,” Verstappen told his race engineer Simon Rennie. “Fucking idiots.”
The Mercedes driver apologised to his team after the collision. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I locked the rear.”
He also said sorry to Verstappen “straight away” after getting out of his car. “I recognise it’s full on me and I just feel sorry because I ended my race but I ended his as well,” Antonelli told the official F1 channel.
Antonelli said he was not trying to brake late for the corner. “I had a normal start and then going up to [turn three] I was just trying to maintain position,” he said. “I didn’t want to do anything because I knew there was no space in front.
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“But then when I hit the brake I locked the rear and I got caught by that. When I locked the rear I lost the car and then I had to first avoid the Racing Bulls. Then I just couldn’t stop the car, and unfortunately I hit Max. I just feel very sorry towards the team and him, of course.”
Verstappen accepted Antonelli’s apology. “I spoke quickly to Kimi, also he came even to the hospitality,” he said. “I think every driver has made a mistake like that, no one does that on purpose as well. So for me, that’s not a big deal.”
The stewards took Antonelli’s explanation into account when deciding their penalty. They ruled he was entirely responsible for the collision but had not been making a reckless attempt to dive up the inside of other cars.
“The driver of car 12 [Antonelli] locked up the rear brakes into turn three and collided with car on {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 one.
“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. Therefore the more lenient approach to judging Lap 1 incidents has not been applied in this case.
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“However, they also acknowledge that the incident was not a blatant attempt to dive into the corner but rather a result of the evasive action after locking up. As the driver was not able to continue the race a grid drop for the next race is applied.”
The stewards also gave Antonelli his first two penalty points for the collision. It is his second grid drop penalty of the year, having previously received one at the Bahrain Grand Prix after his team sent him into the fast lane too early during a qualifying session.
Antonelli and Verstappen previously tangled in very different circumstances in the pit lane during the Miami Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver was given a 10-second time penalty after his team released him into the side of the Mercedes following a pit stop.
You say
Was Antonelli’s penalty for his collision with Verstappen correct? Cast your vote below and have your say in the comments.
Antonelli's penalty for colliding with Verstappen is
- No opinion (0%)
- Far too lenient (6%)
- Slightly too lenient (6%)
- Correct (67%)
- Slightly too harsh (22%)
- Far too harsh (0%)
Total Voters: 18
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2025 Austrian Grand Prix
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AbeyG (@1abe)
29th June 2025, 15:55
Pretty sure Red Bull will still raise a complaint againt George Russell saying that he is Antonelli’s teammate and is the defacto team leader and that he should be the one who should get the penalty!
mystic one (@mysticus)
29th June 2025, 16:02
where is palmar?
osnola
29th June 2025, 18:43
More likely georges goes to the stewards asking for a penalty for max as he should not have been on that spot and thus blocking kimis path.
MichaelN
29th June 2025, 16:27
I understand that Andrea Antonelli wasn’t yet born when this happened, but the Sato incident here some twenty years ago should really make everyone involved in racing here take extra care (and maybe the track needs a wall closer to the track, as at La Source). Rather than bumping into the car ahead, Antonelli instead swerved out of his line and set up a super dangerous T-bone move. Not okay.
This is F1, and Antonelli’s antics were not up to par. A severe sanction would be very fair.
Terrion (@terrion)
29th June 2025, 17:00
Way worse looking incident happened here in 2020 Moto GP
Patrick (@paeschli)
29th June 2025, 19:38
Yeah I don’t get how Verstappen gets 3 penalty points for harmless wheel banging yet Antonelli gets 2 points for T-boning another car and Colapinto gets 1 point for driving one of the leading cars into the grass while being shown blue flags.
Davethechicken
29th June 2025, 22:15
Intent is the difference you are not getting.
BasCB (@bascb)
29th June 2025, 22:20
Because what Verstappen did was so stupid and completely unnecessary (since he was told by his team to let Russel past, there was no reason at all to then drive into him) where Antonelli just made a (bad) mistake that took someone out.
Applebook
30th June 2025, 4:45
Kimi just needs to hit Max intentionally next time for a lesser penalty in your books.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
29th June 2025, 16:42
Well, it kept Max out of trouble and prevented him doing anything that would have earned a race ban!
Shouldn’t be skittling cars like that, let’s see if his penalty amounts to anything.
Patrick (@paeschli)
29th June 2025, 19:39
What’s avoiding a race ban good for when you come home with zero points anyway…?
Dex
29th June 2025, 22:56
So you want to say that Verstappen is lucky to have missed a race because of being taken out, so he wouldn’t be at small to moderate risk of missing a different race (effectively trading a small possibility of something happening for something actually happening)?
I know you’re being facetious, but the whole premise is a little pointless.
Whitedog
29th June 2025, 17:15
Antonelli should have been named driver of the day excellent move…
Jk
29th June 2025, 17:36
You must be a real f1 fan!
Jere (@jerejj)
29th June 2025, 17:37
Jk Sarcasm.
osnola
29th June 2025, 18:45
you wish… they are very serious!
Its the internet in optima forma..
Whitedog
29th June 2025, 17:43
40+ years…thx
Optimaximal (@optimaximal)
29th June 2025, 17:35
As much as he admitted blame, what happened to the ‘Lap 1 racing incident’?
Jere (@jerejj)
29th June 2025, 17:36
Some incidents are simply too severe for that general approach to apply.
Seppo (@helava)
29th June 2025, 18:37
I mean this question entirely sincerely, but why was this “simply too severe”? It’s a turn one incident, Antonelli was trying to avoid an incident with another car in a big scrum, locked up, and from that point it was more or less over. Yes, there’s potential for a T-bone, but at the speed Antonelli was going, the risk doesn’t seem like it was significantly “more severe” than other turn one incidents?
Am I missing something?
I get that Verstappen was taken out, but these kinds of errors can’t be judged by their consequences, they have to be judged by the error itself, right? Or am I missing something that made Antonelli’s mistake more egregious than it appeared to me?
ZoemDoef
30th June 2025, 11:36
Only, this “turn-one” incident took place in TURN THREE…..
Seppo (@helava)
30th June 2025, 19:21
Sure, it’s not “turn one” technically, but T1 at Red Bull Ring isn’t the same as like, T1 at Spa. T3 is the first major bunching-up pinch point, so you’ve got the traditional T1 accordion effect, and that’s what caught Antonelli out. Was his mistake radically more severe than any other similar accident? These kinds of things happen on lap 1 all the time without penalty, because they’re complicated racing incidents. I genuinely don’t see how this is different. Lock up into aero wake into further lockup into collision. How Antonelli should have anticipated juking into an aero wake that he couldn’t see… ? That’s a traditional racing incident, IMO.
Optimaximal (@optimaximal)
29th June 2025, 17:37
(Oops, I missed the explanation, but that still makes no sense as there have been plenty of other incidents that weren’t influenced by other cars)
Jere (@jerejj)
29th June 2025, 17:37
I wasn’t surprised at all about him getting a grid penalty & penalty points as this combo was pretty much a foregone conclusion.
Addme (@dontme)
29th June 2025, 17:38
Rookie mistake, can happen. Learn and move on.
Mayrton
29th June 2025, 18:07
+1
Neil (@neilosjames)
29th June 2025, 19:25
I think more than anything that’s been said, Verstappen’s reaction is the final bit of proof that when he says he isn’t really in the title fight, he means it.
David BR (@david-br)
29th June 2025, 20:45
@neilosjames Impressively chill indeed.
Deep Sky
29th June 2025, 20:54
Good catch. Yes, he seems to have accepted that it’s a two horse race due to a dominant constructor, similar to Mercedes once upon a time but with two formidable drivers. He knows 2nd is best case scenario and he does give it 100% every race but after 4 titles, that doesn’t taste as sweet now maybe.
Steve (@scbriml)
30th June 2025, 17:30
The way things are going, he’ll be lucky to hold on to P3 in the WDC.
Kamikaze Seagull (@kamikazeseagull)
29th June 2025, 20:57
When Verstappen was down 50 points against Leclerc in a superior Ferrari in 2022, he didn’t accept defeat so easily. Hard not to suspect the difference is that back then he trusted Red Bull would put their car back on top, whereas now he’s lost the faith.
F1statsfan (@f1statsfan)
30th June 2025, 6:21
Well key difference is that in 2022 at beginning of the season the Red Bull was relative competitive just overweight so Max knew the car would get better.
He actually was 46 points behind after 3 races with 19 races left, Max felt much better balance in the car and the cause of his 46 points deficit were 2 DNF not due to lack of performance.
Over the next 3 races Max scored 85 of maximum available 86 points and was leading the championship with 6 points.
Edvaldo
30th June 2025, 13:04
Thats because the only reason the gap was that large was because he DNFed in two races Leclerc won. He was running 2nd in both.
It was just a matter of trimming the weight down and fixing reliability and they would be in the fight, exactly what happened later.
Now they dont have a solution for their problems. Very different situation.