Red Bull reveal cause of Max Verstappen’s costly pit lane collision in Miami sprint

Red Bull F1 team principal Christian Horner blamed “human error” for Max Verstappen's pit lane collision with Kimi Antonelli in the Miami sprint race.

During the switchover to dry tyres, the pit lane was busy in Miami.

Verstappen was released into Antonelli’s path as he left his pit box.

The pair collided, with Verstappen sustaining front wing damage.

Antonelli could not enter his pit box as a result, meaning he had to do an extra lap on the intermediates, ruining his race entirely.

The stewards handed Verstappen a 10-second time penalty, which dropped him to the back of the order after the late-race Safety Car.

Verstappen had already lost out due to the damage, losing a place to Lewis Hamilton before the aforementioned Safety Car. 

After the race, Horner admitted it was simply a “human error” and that Red Bull would learn from it.

“Yeah look it was a human error. We will learn from it,” Horner told Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz.

Verstappen’s view on the incident

It’s not the first time this season where Red Bull have faced issues in the pit lane.

A faulty traffic lights system plagued their Bahrain Grand Prix.

This resulted in several slow pit stops for Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda in Bahrain.

Red Bull’s operational errors irked Verstappen’s manager, Raymond Vermeulen, leading to a ‘crisis meeting’ after the race in Bahrain.

Red Bull have famously been the best team on the F1 grid at pit stops in recent years, and that was an area led by Jonathan Wheatley, who is now Sauber’s team principal.

Reflecting on what happened in the Miami sprint, Verstappen said: “Well, they’ve all been different incidents, so you can’t really compare these things, but I think we all don’t want that to happen, but it happened.

“This is something that we need to investigate but on the other hand I am just happy no one got injured.

“With these cars, if you hit someone, it’s not great. I think it was super clear what happened so not much more for me to add.”