Charles Leclerc handed huge Miami GP penalty after battle with Max Verstappen and George Russell

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4 May 2026 at 01:38

Charles Leclerc has been handed a 20-second post-race time penalty for a last-lap incident at the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix.

Leclerc suffered a high-speed spin on the final lap of the Miami race, avoiding a huge accident but still suffering front-left car damage after tapping the Turn 3 wall.

As a result Leclerc lost a podium finish to Oscar Piastri, and he then desperately attempted to fend off Mercedes' George Russell and Red Bull driver Max Verstappen.

But because he suffered steering arm damage Leclerc cut several corners and pushed the lapped car of Arvid Lindblad out of the way. He also made slight contact with Russell at the hairpin as he lost places to both the Mercedes man and Verstappen at the line.

After the race the FIA race stewards investigated the contact with Russell as well as Leclerc allegedly leaving the track and gaining an advantage. Leclerc was handed a drive-through penalty for the latter, which was converted into a 20-second penalty post-race.

As a result Leclerc drops to down to eighth behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton and Alpine's Franco Colapinto, who nets his best-ever grand prix result as a result.

More to follow

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Charles Leclerc Hit With Huge Penalty After Miami GP Stewards Rule Against Ferrari Driver

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4 May 2026 at 01:30

The stewards at the 2026 Miami Grand Prix have handed Charles Leclerc a 20-second post-race time penalty, ruling that the mechanical damage his Ferrari sustained on the final lap did not justify the multiple occasions he left the track and gained an advantage.

After glancing the left-hand side of his Ferrari against the wall on the last lap, Leclerc was left unable to negotiate right-hand corners properly and ultimately finished sixth, costing himself what he acknowledged would have been third or fourth place.

The stewards’ document, issued at 17:21 local time on May 3, confirms that Leclerc’s car spun at Turn 3 on the final tour, hit the wall, and continued. According to the ruling, Leclerc himself reported to the stewards that the damage forced him to cut chicanes rather than negotiate them normally. The stewards’ conclusion was that the mechanical condition was not sufficient justification for repeatedly leaving the circuit and benefiting from it, in breach of Article B1.8.6 of the FIA F1 Regulations.

The penalty is a drive-through converted to 20 seconds added to his elapsed race time.

A five-second penalty would not have changed his classified position, but the 20-second sanction is enough to drop him below Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton into eighth.

The Stewards Considered the Unsafe Car Question Too

The document also reveals the stewards examined whether continuing to race with a mechanically compromised car constituted a separate offence in its own right. They found no evidence to support that charge, so no additional penalty was applied on those grounds. It was a narrow escape on that front. Three separate post-race investigations had been opened against Leclerc, covering the track limits breach, the unsafe car question, and an allegation of causing a collision with George Russell.

Leclerc himself had already been forthright after the flag, telling media he had put “a very strong race in the bin” in the space of four corners.

“It’s all on me. I don’t have much to add other than that. Very disappointed with my mistake. It shouldn’t happen.

“I pushed very hard in the second-to-last lap. I thought I was a good idea to let Oscar go for me to get the Overtake. I knew it was going to be very difficult to get in front otherwise.

“It was a very poor decision and in the space of four corners I put a very strong race in the bin. I am very frustrated about that. Not much more to say.”

Kimi Antonelli took the race win for Mercedes, with Lando Norris second and Oscar Piastri third, the entire 57-lap contest completing without rain disruption after the start was brought forward to avoid incoming storms.

Antonelli’s third consecutive victory from his first three race weekends of the season is the story of this championship right now. For Leclerc, Miami is a race that will be filed under “what could have been” for a very long time.

Martin Brundle Defends Charles Leclerc as Ferrari Driver Heads to Stewards After Miami GP Mistake

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3 May 2026 at 23:33

Charles Leclerc‘s final lap at the 2026 Miami Grand Prix was not a tidy one. After clipping the wall and limping around with a damaged Ferrari, he lost fourth place to both George Russell and Max Verstappen in the closing moments. He now faces a stewards’ hearing that covers multiple alleged offences simultaneously.

The stewards confirmed they will investigate Leclerc for continuing to race in an unsafe condition.

On top of that, he is separately under scrutiny for making minor contact with Russell on the final lap and for leaving the track multiple times and allegedly gaining an advantage. That is three investigations from one chaotic last tour of the Miami International Autodrome.

Sky Sports F1‘s Martin Brundle wasn’t ready to throw Leclerc under the bus for any of it.

“He got it home didn’t he. He had four wheels on it, all pointing roughly in the right direction,” Brundle said. “You can’t just go ‘I bumped the wall, I will park it and get out of the way’. George Russell’s car was every bit as unsafe and he carried on.”

The Wider Stewards’ Queue Is Long

Leclerc isn’t the only one with explaining to do after Miami.

Russell has been noted for moving under braking, while the Russell-Verstappen contact in the latter stages of the race is also under investigation.

Verstappen is also under investigation for supposedly crossing the white line at the pit exit after his stop, a four-time world champion who had already spun on the opening lap and fallen down the order, with FIA officials set to take a closer look once they had more information from the full 57-lap race distance.

The Russell-Leclerc contact happened at Turn 17 on the last lap, the same corner where Russell then squeezed past to snatch fourth. Whether the stewards view Leclerc’s battered Ferrari as a genuine safety hazard or as a car that was damaged but still under reasonable control will be the core question. And Brundle’s point about Russell continuing in a similarly compromised state will be hard for the stewards to ignore when making that call.

Leclerc had hit the wall and was visibly limping around in those final laps, which is precisely why he became such easy prey at the end. The argument that a damaged car should always be parked is a reasonable one on paper. In practice, F1 drivers nurse battered machinery home regularly, and the line between “unsafe” and “damaged” has always been a judgment call. Sixth place 0 where Leclerc ultimately wound up – beats a retirement.

Whatever the stewards decide, the real headline from Miami still belongs to Kimi Antonelli, who won the race for Mercedes ahead of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. The rest was paperwork.

Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and George Russell all summoned after chaotic F1 Miami GP

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3 May 2026 at 23:30

Red Bull's Max Verstappen, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc and Mercedes man George Russell have all been summoned to the stewards at the end of Formula 1's Miami Grand Prix.

Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli defeated McLaren's Lando Norris to take his third consecutive grand prix win, expanding his championship lead on Russell to 20 points.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, George Russell, Mercedes

But Leclerc is also under investigation for both leaving the track and gaining an advantage, and for continuing with a car in a potentially unsafe condition after he survived a scary spin in Turn 3 on the final lap. Leclerc avoided a huge accident as he lost control over his Ferrari but still tapped the wall on exit and appeared to damage the front-left steering arm.

The Monegasque driver then cut several corners as he slumped to sixth behind Russell and Verstappen. Leclerc will also be investigated for tagging Russell at the Turn 17 hairpin.

Finally, Russell is being looked at for making contact with Verstappen in their final lap battle, with the Red Bull driver reporting: "I think he hit my tyre" as he tried to survive on old hard tyres.