Red Bull pick up points in Miami Grand Prix sprint race despite and after penalties

Red Bull did pick up points in the sprint race at the Miami Grand Prix despite a penalty for Max Verstappen, with Yuki Tsunoda getting points after three other drivers also got penalties.

It had looked as though Red Bull would pick no points from the sprint. Reigning world champion Verstappen was handed a ten second time penalty for a collision with Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes in the pit lane after he was released too early in a pit-stop in a wet-dry race, with the penalty sending Verstappen from fourth on the road to 17th and last after the race ended behind the safety car.

Tsunoda had finished 10th on the road, which became 9th after Verstappen’s penalty and thus seemingly looked set for no points in a race where only the top 8 finishers get points. But after the race, Alex Albon, Liam Lawson and Ollie Bearman all received five second time penalties for various infringements, bumping Tsunoda to 6th and handing him 3 points.

Ahead of the full Miami Grand Prix race later today (04/05), Verstappen sits third in the Driver’s Championship on 87 points, with the Dutchman 10 points behind second placed Lando Norris and 19 behind championship leader Oscar Piastri.

Tsunoda is in 11th with 8 points, while the Milton Keynes-based Red Bull team sit third in the Constructor’s Championship. They are 8 ahead of fourth placed Ferrari, 26 points behind second place Mercedes and 111 behind leaders McLaren.

The Miami Grand Prix was hosting a sprint for a second year in a row on a the circuit in the car park around the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. But the sprint would be a delayed start, with a heavy shower seeing proceedings start half an hour behind schedule.

When the race got going, Verstappen began in 4th but was able to skip ahead of Antonelli to take third on the opening lap after the pole-sitter went off track in a battle with Piastri.

Tsunoda had started last after a set-up change meant a pit-lane start, which became back of grid as two formation laps meant the race was considered to have started, and he had stayed near the back in the first half of the 18-lap race.

As the race progressed, however, conditions began to brighten up and the track began to dry. Red Bull opted to pit Tsunoda onto dry weather tyres to get an early sign of whether the track was dry enough, with the fact it was allowing him to climb the order when others made the switch.

Verstappen, however, had a major issue when he made the change. An error with Red Bull’s pit stop system saw Verstappen released into Antonelli, who was pitting in his Mercedes, and the two made contact in the pit lane. This damaged Verstappen’s front wing, while the team were handed a penalty for the error in the form of a ten second time penalty for the Dutchman.

As if that wasn’t enough, a safety car was then summoned after a collision between Lawson and Fernando Alonso put the Aston Martin into the wall, with the race finishing under the safety car.

As the safety car had bunched the pack up, it meant that a ten second penalty dropped Verstappen down the standings. He had finished fourth, having been overtaken by Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton just before the safety car, but the penalty sent him all the way down to 17th and last position.

Tsunoda had been promoted from 10th to 9th following that, but a few hours after the sprint finished, the results were tweaked with a multitude of penalties.

Williams’ Albon was handed a 5 second time penalty for breaking the speed limit behind the safety car, Lawson was handed a 5 second time penalty after the Racing Bulls driver was deemed guilty of crashing into Alonso’s Aston Martin, and the Haas driver Bearman was handed a 5 second penalty for an unsafe release into the path of Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg.

These three penalties saw all of them ejected from the points, with all of Albon, Lawson and Bearman having finished in the top 8 and been in line for points.

Tsunoda was duly reclassified sixth in the new order, earning three points for his efforts.

For the full Miami Grand Prix, the race begins at 9pm tonight (04/05). Qualifying was held after yesterday’s sprint race, with Verstappen pipping McLaren’s Norris to take pole position and Tsunoda starting 10th.