FIA strips Antonelli of Qatar Sprint P5, Tsunoda bags best Red Bull finish of 2025
Lusail’s painted run-off claimed its usual victims on Saturday, and the stewards did the rest. Andrea Kimi Antonelli was handed a five-second time penalty after the flag in the Qatar Sprint, costing the Mercedes rookie fifth place and restoring Yuki Tsunoda to P5 — the Japanese driver’s best result since joining Red Bull.
Both drivers fell foul of the same thing: too many excursions beyond track limits. Tsunoda was the first to be pinged, his original P5 demoted to sixth after a five-second sanction. That bumped Antonelli up a spot, briefly. Post-race, the stewards reviewed the Mercedes’ lap traces and video, noted a black-and-white warning flag for three breaches, then a fourth violation, and applied the standard five seconds. The net effect: Tsunoda back to fifth, Antonelli down to sixth.
It capped a quietly impressive Saturday for Tsunoda, who outqualified reigning four-time world champion Max Verstappen for the first time since stepping into the top Red Bull seat earlier this season. In clean air he had pace, and with the lines this tight at Lusail, he needed it. The Sprint finish marks his strongest result yet for Red Bull, bettering previous sixth places in the Miami Sprint and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Up front, Oscar Piastri kept his cool and his tyres intact to win the Sprint — his first victory of any kind since the Dutch Grand Prix in late August. George Russell chased the McLaren home for second, with Lando Norris banking third. That trims Norris’s championship lead to 22 points heading into Sunday’s Grand Prix, adding a little edge to a title fight that’s been tilting his way.
Antonelli will be annoyed, and maybe a touch unlucky, but this was the kind of messy Sprint that always invites trouble at Lusail. Track limits aren’t a suggestion here; they’re policed like a speed trap. Once you’ve burned through three strikes and earned the warning flag, a fourth is automatic pain. The 18-year-old’s speed isn’t in question — his rookie season already includes a podium in Las Vegas after post-race disqualifications elevated him to third — but managing the white lines is now part of the brief.
The shuffle doesn’t move any mountains in the constructors’ fight, but every point matters with two rounds to go. Mercedes carry a 41-point cushion over Red Bull in the scrap for second in the standings. Piastri’s win makes McLaren look lively again, yet the more immediate subplot is Red Bull’s intra-team dynamic: Tsunoda’s confidence ticked up with that qualifying scalp on Verstappen and a tidy P5 under pressure.
For Tsunoda, who replaced Liam Lawson ahead of the third round in Japan and has logged 29 points since, this was the sort of tidy, grown-up afternoon Red Bull’s senior garage expects. He stayed largely out of the stewards’ notebook, bar the one penalty that started the dominoes, and his recovery back to P5 after Antonelli’s sanction was earned on pace, not charity.
The Sprint itself won’t rewrite the season’s narrative, but it did set the tone. McLaren’s execution was sharp, Russell looks racy, and Norris can feel the field inching closer. Verstappen, starting behind his teammate, was unusually muted by his own standards — a reminder that Lusail punishes imprecision and that Saturday points can slip away fast when the white lines become enemies.
As for Antonelli, he’ll chalk it up as a lesson. The raw ingredients are all there; the finesse at circuits with brutal track-limit policing is the next step. If he tidies that up, Sunday offers a quick chance of redemption.
Key takeaways:
– Oscar Piastri wins the Qatar Sprint, his first since the Dutch GP.
– George Russell P2, Lando Norris P3; Norris’s title lead trimmed to 22 points.
– Yuki Tsunoda regains P5 after post-race penalty for Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
– Tsunoda outqualified Max Verstappen for the first time since joining Red Bull and records his best Red Bull finish to date.
– Mercedes still hold a 41-point advantage over Red Bull for P2 in the constructors with two rounds remaining.
Now, onto the main event at Lusail — with the margins tighter, the lines thinner, and everyone acutely aware of where the kerb ends and the stopwatch begins.
