Leclerc penalised after Miami GP spin, Verstappen also hit with sanction

Charles Leclerc’s Miami Grand Prix ended with a 20-second post-race penalty that pushed him from sixth to eighth, turning a late mistake into a points loss and adding fresh scrutiny to Formula 1’s stewards. The Ferrari driver was already under pressure after a last-lap spin and light contact with the wall at the Miami International Autodrome, and the stewards then examined three separate possible offences before issuing the sanction.

Those possible breaches were driving a damaged car in an unsafe condition, leaving the track multiple times and gaining an advantage, and an incident with George Russell at the final hairpin. Leclerc had been running third before Oscar Piastri passed him at the hairpin at the end of the penultimate lap. He then spun through the Esses while chasing the McLaren driver, struck the barrier and kept going with significant damage before losing more places. The sequence left the FIA panel to weigh not just one moment, but a chain of late-race actions that affected the finishing order.

Leclerc took full responsibility for the error, saying he had “put a very strong race in the bin.” That line captured the scale of the collapse. He had led the opening stages, was still in podium contention late on, and instead left Miami with the kind of result that can swing a championship weekend from promising to costly in a matter of minutes.

Max Verstappen was also penalised after the race, receiving five seconds for crossing the white line at the pit exit. The stewards judged that the breach warranted only that sanction, a narrower and more straightforward call than Leclerc’s multi-part case. Verstappen, Leclerc and Russell were all summoned after the race, underlining how the late incidents were intertwined and how heavily the final classification depended on steward interpretation.

That is now the bigger story beyond the individual penalties. Multiple post-race investigations are becoming a central talking point because they leave teams and fans waiting for the final order while the stewards sort through overlapping incidents. In Miami, the delay was not just about punishment; it was about how visible and consistent the decision-making appeared when one race produced separate hearings for Leclerc, Verstappen and Russell, each with consequences for the result.