Charles Leclerc’s miserable Sunday at the Miami Grand Prix was topped off by a 20-second postrace penalty, dropping him from sixth place to eighth in the final classification.
Max Verstappen received a five-second penalty for crossing the pit lane exit line after his pit stop, but the additional time made no difference to his fifth-place finish given Leclerc’s more extreme penalty.
Leclerc lost third place to Oscar Piastri on the penultimate lap of the race and then spun trying to stay close enough to repass the McLaren through the opening section of the final lap.
Leclerc’s Ferrari made contact with the barrier as a result of the spin, damaging the front left corner of the car, meaning he skipped a number of corners as he nursed his vehicle to the finish line.
He lost two further places to George Russell and Verstappen in the last corner of the final lap before the stewards launched a postrace investigation into the skipped corners and whether his car was driven in an unsafe condition.
“Car 16 [Leclerc] spun on the last lap at turn 3 and hit the wall but continued on track,” the stewards’ statement said. “The driver informed us that the car appeared fine save that the car would not negotiate the right hand corners properly.
“Given this problem, he was forced to cut chicanes on the way to the chequered flag. We determined that the fact that he had to cut the chicanes (i.e. to leave the track) meant that he gained a lasting advantage by leaving the track in that manner. The fact that he had a mechanical issue of some sort did not amount to a justifiable reason.
“We accordingly impose a Drive Through penalty on Car 16,” the stewards said, “given the number of times the car left the track and gained an advantage.
“We also considered whether there was an additional breach in continuing to drive a car with an obvious and discernible mechanical issue. We determined that there was no evidence of there being an obvious of discernible mechanical issue. We therefore took no further action in relation to that potential infringement.”
– Miami Grand Prix: Kimi Antonelli edges Lando Norris for third straight win, extends title lead
– Charles Leclerc on Miami GP error: I put my race in the bin
– ‘How did we not win this?’: Lando Norris ‘gutted’ after finishing 2nd at Miami Grand Prix
The penalty moved Leclerc’s Ferrari teammate, Lewis Hamilton, up to sixth place and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto up to a career-best seventh.
Verstappen’s postrace penalty was unusual in that such incidents are usually decided during the race rather than after.
Although the penalty made no difference to the result, the stewards explained the reason it was investigated only after the checkered flag.
“When the incident occurred there was limited video evidence to make a clear decision on whether an infringement had occurred,” their statement read. “We therefore decided to investigate the incident after the race, to see if we could get better video evidence of the incident in the meantime, perhaps from other angles. We were able to do so.
“The new angles did show more views of the pit exit line and the incident in question. The driver of Car 3 explained that he was driving out of the pit exit and rejoined the race under full course yellow.
“The stewards determined that the outside of the front left-hand tyre did cross the outside of the solid white pit exit line in violation of Appendix L, Chapter IV Article 6 c) of the International Sporting Code,” they added. “Given the nature of the infraction the Stewards elected to impose a penalty of 5 seconds.”
