F1 News: FIA announce Max Verstappen penalty after Miami Grand Prix

Max Verstappen,FIA,Red Bull,Belgium,2025 — Photo: © IMAGO

Miami Grand Prix

FIA announce Max Verstappen penalty after Miami Grand Prix

Verstappen was handed the penalty for an incident under the safety car

Chris Deeley

Sunday 3 May 2026 23:58 Updated: 00:11

Max Verstappen has been handed a post-race penalty following the conclusion of the F1 Miami Grand Prix.

The Dutchman was noted during the race for potentially crossing the white line on pit exit, but stewards chose to investigate the incident after the race. They have now done that, and handed Verstappen the infraction's standard five-second penalty.

That would have been enough to knock the Red Bull star down from fifth to sixth in the final classification, had Charles Leclerc behind him not also picked up a penalty – that one for leaving the track and gaining an advantage multiple times as he limped home in a broken Ferrari.

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Leclerc's penalty means Verstappen holds onto his position, which he only picked up in the first place thanks to the Ferrari driver's substantial drop in pace after his last-lap crash.

RACE RESULTS: Antonelli makes history as Verstappen investigated

FIA explain delayed Verstappen decision

Verstappen should be breathing a sigh of relief that his lapse didn't cost him a position, with the fact that he was stopping (and emerging) under safety car conditions making it somehow more baffling that he managed to breach a basic rule.

The FIA decision document confirmed the decision, and also explained why a theoretically cut-and-dried decision needed to be investigated post-race, rather than a decision being made and announced mid-race.

It read: "The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 3 (Max Verstappen), team representative and reviewed, video and in-car video evidence.

"When the incident occurred there was limited video evidence to make a clear decision on whether an infringement had occurred. 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. Given the nature of the infraction the Stewards elected to impose a penalty of 5 seconds."

F1 HEADLINES: Verstappen sends Miami warning, Red Bull star disqualified

F1 Red Bull Max Verstappen FIA Miami Grand Prix