Red Bull driver Isack Hadjar will start the Miami Grand Prix from the back of the grid after his car was disqualified from Saturday’s qualifying session.
Hadjar qualified ninth on Saturday but a “mistake” by his Red Bull team meant his car’s right and left-hand-side floor boards were not in compliance with the regulations.
“The stewards heard from the team representatives of Car 6 [Isack Hadjar],” a statement written by the stewards at the Miami Grand Prix said. “They did not dispute the findings of the Technical Delegate that portions of the LHS and RHS floor boards were protruding 2mm out of the reference volume RV-FLOOR BOARD.
“This is a breach of Article C3.5.5 of the FIA F1 Regulations and the usual consequences follow an admitted breach of the technical regulations.”
Red Bull issued a statement on the morning of the race admitting it had made an error and confirming Hadjar would start the race from the back of the grid.
“We made a mistake and we respect the decision of the stewards,” Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said. “No performance advantage was intended nor gained from this error. We will learn from this incident and assess our processes to understand how it occurred and to take steps to ensure it cannot happen again. As a team, we apologise to Isack, and to our fans and partners.
“We learn the hard way today, but we will move forward. Now our focus is on converting yesterday’s encouraging showing into a strong race performance this afternoon.”
The car of Hadjar’s teammate Max Verstappen cleared post-qualifying scrutiny and is due to start second on the grid.
