MIAMI (Reuters) - George Russell kept third place for Mercedes at Sunday's Miami Grand Prix after Formula One stewards rejected a Red Bull protest.
Red Bull's four-time world champion Max Verstappen finished fourth in the race, 2.312 seconds behind Russell, after starting on pole position. McLaren's Oscar Piastri won, ahead of teammate Lando Norris.
After the protest was ruled admissible to be heard, stewards then declared it to be unfounded.
Red Bull had alleged Russell had failed to slow when yellow flags were waved during a virtual safety car period.
A five-second time penalty would have promoted Verstappen onto the podium.
"We've registered a protest with the (governing) FIA regarding George Russell," Red Bull boss Christian Horner told reporters.
"From the GPS that we can see quite clearly while he did lift, he did not reduce speed, and the regulation is quite explicitly clear that there has to be a reduction of speed.
"The car has kept accelerating, just at a slower rate than it would normally."
Stewards said in a statement that onboard footage and telemetry showed Russell had lifted the throttle by some 25% when passing the yellow flag zone.
(Reporting by Matt Majendie, writing by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Chris Reese and Christian Schmollinger)
