Ferrari F1 star Charles Leclerc furious after Miami Grand Prix: 'Very poor decision'

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Bahrain, 2026 — Photo: © IMAGO

Miami Grand Prix

Ferrari F1 star Charles Leclerc furious after Miami Grand Prix: 'Very poor decision'

Leclerc crashed on the last lap of the Miami Grand Prix

Chris Deeley

Monday 4 May 2026 08:58

Charles Leclerc has admitted that he made a big error of judgement at the Miami Grand Prix which led, a few corners later, to him ruining his afternoon with a crash.

The Ferrari star was battling hard with Oscar Piastri in the final laps to defend his third place, losing out to the McLaren driver on the penultimate lap – as it turned out, apparently by choice.

Leclerc told Sky Sports after the race that he 'let Oscar go for [him]' heading into the last lap of the race so that he would get the benefit of overtake mode and use the 'yo-yo racing' of the current season to his advantage to retake his place.

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That, he conceded, was a mistake. Compounding that mistake, he pushed his Pirelli tyres past the limit of their remaining grip and spun 360 degrees into the outside wall – still able to run, but clearly with damage.

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The Monegasque dropped way back off Piastri immediately, and was passed by George Russell and Max Verstappen as he limped back around the final lap to the chequered flag.

“It’s all on me," he said in the aftermath of the race. "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 [mode]. 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.”

Things got worse on Sunday evening. Race stewards announced an investigation into the number of times he left the track when struggling on that last lap, which saw him pick up a time penalty.

That time penalty was a whopping 20 seconds (the equivalent of a drive-through), sending him tumbling from sixth to eighth.

Before the decision, he had said: “I don’t know what the decision will be. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. The thing I can say is I did my best to try and make the corners first of all. It was probably a lot more difficult than it looked from outside.”

F1 Ferrari Charles Leclerc Miami Grand Prix