Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen continues to produce incredible moments during the 2025 Formula 1 season.
The Miami Grand Prix witnessed the late arrival of Max Verstappen after the birth of his daughter Lily, but that didn’t appear to impact his preparations.
Verstappen looked in good shape to secure a podium finish for Red Bull in the Sprint Race after starting fourth on the grid.
He capitalised on Kimi Antonelli running wide at the first corner and while he wasn’t able to keep up with both McLaren drivers, he was comfortably the best of the rest.
| Position | Drivers’ Championship | Points |
| 1 |
Oscar Piastri |
99 |
| 2 |
Lando Norris |
89 |
| 3 |
Max Verstappen |
87 |
| 4 |
George Russell |
73 |
| 5 |
Charles Leclerc |
47 |
| 6 |
Andrea Kimi Antonelli |
38 |
| 7 |
Lewis Hamilton |
31 |
| 8 |
Alexander Albon |
20 |
| 9 |
Esteban Ocon |
14 |
| 10 |
Lance Stroll |
10 |
Verstappen was labelled ‘dangerous’ by one of his F1 rivals during qualifying for the Sprint Race, and while he wasn’t penalised on that occasion, he didn’t get away with another error made on Saturday.
Red Bull released Verstappen too quickly from his pit stop as he made the switch onto soft tyres, causing a collision with Antonelli in the process.
It earned Verstappen a 10-second time penalty which saw him drop out of the points after the race finished behind the safety car.
READ MORE: Red Bull driver Max Verstappen’s life outside F1 from net worth to girlfriend
Jenson Button hails Max Verstappen for ‘unbelievably relaxed’ response to Miami Grand Prix error
For the first time since 2016, Verstappen was a classified finisher at the end of a Formula 1 race without scoring any points.
Although three other drivers received penalties for various infractions, Verstappen’s was the most harsh, meaning a bunched-up pack forced him to the bottom of the timing screens.
Jenson Button was reflecting on the error from Red Bull on Sky Sports F1 (3/5 8:57 pm) and hailed the Dutchman’s response to the mistake.
He said, “It’s funny listening to Max, because obviously on the radio when things don’t go your way, you can bite back at the team a little bit.
| RANK | DRIVER | TEAM | POINTS |
| 1 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 8 |
| 2 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 7 |
| 3 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 6 |
| 4 | George Russell | Mercedes | 5 |
| 5 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | 4 |
| 6 | Yuki Tsunoda | Red Bull | 3 |
| 7 | Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | 2 |
| 8 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | 1 |
“But, out of the car, Max is unbelievably relaxed when things go wrong.
“He’s like, ‘This went wrong, we’re going to fix it, we’re going to move forward,’ and that’s exactly what you need from a four-time world champion because we do all make mistakes and obviously with [Jonathan] Wheatley not there.
“Someone else is in that position, it’s a high-stress position that another person is under when to release the car out of the pits and he got it wrong this time.
“I don’t think he’ll do it again.”
READ MORE: Everything you need to know about F1 legend Michael Schumacher from net worth to career stats
Max Verstappen following in Michael Schumacher’s footsteps after Miami Grand Prix error
Verstappen made up for the mistake during qualifying, seeing off both McLaren drivers and Antonelli to achieve yet another pole position.
The margins were extremely tight, but the 27-year-old made the least errors on his final flying lap, making up for running slightly wide at the first corner throughout the rest of the lap.
Verstappen and Schumacher have been compared before and this is another area where they have a similar outlook.
In 1999, Niki Lauda was in the process of leaving Ferrari with the team suffering a title drought similar to what they’re going through today.
Schumacher vehemently defended the team despite their issues, and said via Autosport, “He [Lauda] is welcome to criticize Ferrari all he wants to, but he is not making any friends with his accusations. [Lauda] has lost the ability to see why things are going wrong.”
“With this car, I can be world champion, I have a realistic chance, it takes time to transform a team.”
Former Ferrari race engineer Rob Smedley spoke to the Sky Sports F1 podcast about Schumacher in 2023 and continued, “Michael through all the difficult times. I never saw him once even privately complain about individuals or complain in a way that wasn’t creating what I call a positive conflict.
“That it wasn’t a positive critique to say we have got a problem let’s just be transparent about this problem but let’s all head in this direction.
“He had complete trust in the technical team and that trust was borne out so when he did have to ride out the troughs he was there as a motivating factor and helping the team.
“Saying ‘it’s alright I trust in you, I know you’ll produce a good car’. And eventually, we did produce good cars, we did produce cars which were worthy of winning world championships.”
