Motor racing-Red Bull blame human error for Verstappen unsafe release

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MIAMI (Reuters) -Red Bull blamed human error after Max Verstappen was released into the path of Mercedes’ pole-sitter Kimi Antonelli in the pitlane during Saturday’s Miami Grand Prix sprint.

The four-times world champion was handed a 10 second penalty, dropping him to last overall, but the incident also wrecked Antonelli’s afternoon with the 18-year-old finishing 10th.

“It was a human error. We will learn from it,” Horner told Sky Sports television.

The points blank left Verstappen still third overall in the standings but now 19 points adrift of McLaren’s championship leader Oscar Piastri, who was second behind teammate Lando Norris.

Verstappen said the team needed to look into what had happened but said he was just happy nobody was hurt in a crowded pitlane.

“It’s super clear what happened, so there’s not much more for me to add,” he said.

Antonelli — in only his sixth F1 race weekend and the youngest driver to start on pole at 18 — took avoiding action, continuing down the pitlane without changing tyres, while Verstappen’s front wing was damaged.

“If it was the main race it would be seriously annoying,” said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.

“I was surprised by the total lack of judgement… somebody panicked there.”

Antonelli had already dropped from pole to fourth at the first corner after losing out to McLaren’s championship leader Oscar Piastri.

The Italian complained he had been forced off but stewards took no action.

“A bit annoyed about lap one, with how it went. It seems like it’s like this, that you can do basically whatever you want. So it’s good to know for the future,” he said.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Pritha Sarkar)