Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was taken aback by what he saw as a “total lack of judgement” from Red Bull in Miami.

The Mercedes boss was referring to an unsafe release during the Miami Grand Prix sprint which led to a crash in the pit lane between Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, one which saw the consequences thankfully end at a broken front wing and penalty for Max Verstappen, with no injuries caused.

Toto Wolff baffled by Red Bull ‘total lack of judgement’

While the Sprint began in very wet conditions, a brief stoppage and return of the sunshine meant the track dried rapidly, to the point that in the closing laps, swapping the intermediates for dry tyres became a gamble worth considering.

Ultimately, that turned into a mass gamble, though Verstappen and Antonelli saw their sprint unravel when they came in for dry tyres.

With Verstappen boxing from P3 and Antonelli P4, Verstappen was released from the Red Bull pit box when Antonelli had begun to turn into the Mercedes box next door.

Antonelli showed quick reactions to turn out, though could not avoid a whack on the rear right of his Mercedes from Verstappen, who suffered a broken front wing as a result.

The FIA stewards gave Verstappen a 10-second penalty for the incident, while it meant that Antonelli had to abort his stop for slicks. A crash for Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso then meant that the race finished behind the Safety Car, with Antonelli crossing the line P10. For Verstappen, it was P17 and last.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner kept his summary short when speaking to Sky F1 after the sprint.

“Human error. We’ll learn from it.”

That verdict was put to Mercedes counterpart Toto Wolff, who expressed shock over the unsafe release, saying “it wasn’t even close” to being safe.

“I mean, if it was the main race, that would be seriously annoying,” Wolff told Sky F1.

“But, I’m surprised about a total lack of judgement there, because it wasn’t even close of releasing without any security concerns.

“So, somebody panicked there.”

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Antonelli expressed his relief that nobody was hurt in the crash, as he explained the avoiding action he took.

“About the pit lane, it was very unfortunate,” he said, “nothing to blame on Max, because he just got released, so he respected the order.

“And what I did is as soon as I saw him coming out, I just tried to avoid a crash, because it could have been a really bad accident for the mechanics. So, happy nothing went wrong there.”

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