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Max Verstappen gave his position back to Lewis Hamilton during Saturday’s Miami Grand Prix Sprint after stewards ruled him beyond track limits for an overtake. However, the Red Bull driver grew visibly frustrated when the Ferrari driver failed to capitalize quickly enough, venting over the radio before completing a legitimate pass for sixth place that he kept to the end of the 19-lap sprint.<\/p>\n
The incident unfolded on Lap 9 at Turn 11, which also featured a parallel battle between Kimi Antonelli and George Russell at the same time. It began when Verstappen moved to the inside lane approaching Turn 11, applying pressure on Hamilton, who was running ahead of him.<\/p>\n
Verstappen squeezed Hamlinton through the corner<\/a> with all four wheels over the white line, completing the pass in territory the regulations do not permit. Hamilton went straight to the radio:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/template><\/p>\n “Max overtook me, going off the track.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Red Bull race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase<\/a> relayed the instruction to Max Verstappen to give the position back. The Dutchman complied, dropping behind Hamilton. But Hamilton did not immediately try to pull away, and Verstappen’s patience lasted about as long as one corner:<\/p>\n “Why isn’t he overtaking? Come on, mate, my god! F**ks sake.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The frustration was short-lived in its impact on the result. A few laps later, Max Verstappen wound himself up and completed the same move cleanly at Turn 17, staying within limits this time and making the pass stick for P6. He remained there to the finish line, and with Antonelli subsequently penalized for track limit violations and pushed back from fourth to sixth post-race, Verstappen was elevated to fifth.<\/p>\n It was Verstappen’s best result of the 2026 season so far. He came from fifth on the grid with used mediums<\/a>, while most of the rest of the top 10 started on fresh sets. Only Verstappen and Isack Hadjar in the second Red Bull were on used rubber, which made the performance more meaningful than the position alone suggested.<\/p>\n The RB22 had genuine pace at the Miami International Autodrome for the first time in 2026, and it showed. There were not enough laps to threaten the Mercedes cars, but the trajectory was clear. On the same lap, the Antonelli-Russell battle<\/a> was equally dramatic.<\/p>\n Russell tucked into Antonelli’s slipstream on the back straight and made a move at the final hairpin for fourth. Antonelli retaliated with a pass under braking at Turn 11 the following lap to reclaim the position, before the championship leader’s track limit transgressions cost him.<\/p>\nMax Verstappen is happy with the changes in RB22 at Miami: “It feels more together.”<\/h2>\n
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