by VALERIO BARRETTA
F1 Miami, Sainz penalized
The Grand Prix ranking changes overnight You love me. Just as happened in the last US race (the one in Austin in 2023), the Italian public will wake up with a different ranking than the one they left the day before, and always with a Ferrari driver who pays the price. This time it’s Carlos Sainz to pay, with a five second penalty on the race time which downgraded him from fourth to fifth place in the standings. For Spanish also a point on the license.
The reason for Sainz’s penalty lies in the contact with Oscar Piastri which occurred in turn 17 after the restart from the Safety Car: the Spaniard, who had been fighting with the young McLaren driver for a few laps, broke through by forcing the braking maneuver with DRS wide open. The #55 went slightly wide but managed to close the corner: in doing so, he ruined the Australian’s front wing, causing him to stop in the pits and effectively excluding him from the points.
The commissioners’ decision
This is the explanation of the commissioners, who in fact halved the penalty compared to the standard one (ten seconds plus two points on the licence).
The document specifies that Sainz caused the accident by missing the apex of the curve. At the same time, however, he slightly lost his rear end, which caused the contact: “If it had not been for the slight loss of control of the car, the collision probably would not have occurred, and the episode would have been an example of a tough but fair duel. The standard penalty is ten seconds with two penalty points, but in light of these mitigating factors, we impose five seconds and one penalty point“.
