Kimi Antonelli Owns Costly Miami Sprint Mistakes After Track Limits Penalty Ruins His Race

The championship lead never felt comfortable for Kimi Antonelli . It definitely doesn’t feel comfortable right now. Antonelli crossed the line fourth on the road in the Miami Grand Prix Sprint, only to be immediately dropped to sixth by a five-second penalty for repeat track limits infringements.

The result means Antonelli picked up three points to Russell’s five, trimming the gap between the two Mercedes drivers at the top of the standings. Points conceded to your own teammate, in a race you physically led home ahead of him, is about as avoidable as a bad weekend gets. The young Italian was shown the black-and-white flag on lap 12 as a final warning, then picked up his fourth track limits violation on the final lap to earn the penalty.

The Problems Started Before the Penalty Antonelli had started alongside Lando Norris on the front row in second place but dropped to fourth at the start as Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc moved ahead after a poor start. It was familiar to the driver, as another bad start slipped him back from second on the grid before the penalty made things worse still. Miami Grand Prix, Thursday, Giacomo Crapanzano After the race, Antonelli argued that his poor start wasn’t down to him.

“On my side for once, I did everything right with the procedures. We need to check what happened. The grip was very low, probably lower than we expected.