{"id":648242,"date":"2026-05-04T03:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/648242\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T03:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:56:10","slug":"charles-leclerc-reacts-to-ferrari-freefall-penalty-after-oscar-piastri-overtake-crash-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/648242\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Leclerc reacts to Ferrari freefall, penalty after Oscar Piastri overtake, crash, video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Leclerc admitted he threw away a podium finish for Ferrari with a wild penultimate lap as he dropped from third to finish eighth in Monday\u2019s Miami Grand Prix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On a day of mixed emotions for Italian motorsport — with teenage prodigy Kimi Antonelli winning a third consecutive race from pole as the country mourned the death of racing legend Alessandro Zanardi — Ferrari failed to live up to their hopes.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

The team arrived in Florida with an extensive upgrades package that buoyed their ambitions. But after a strong showing in Friday practice they struggled to keep pace with rivals including Antonelli\u2019s Mercedes team and McLaren.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was third and I pushed very hard in the second-to-last lap. I thought it was a good idea to kind of let Oscar (Piastri) go for me to get the overtake (of him),\u201d said Leclerc.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it was going to be very difficult to stay in front of him otherwise, and it was a very poor decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the space of four corners, I put a very strong race in the bin — so I am very frustrated about that.\u201d <\/p>\n

READ MORE <\/p>\n

Talking Points: How strategy blunder exposed missing McLaren piece; incredible title truth sinks in<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Definitely\u2019: Piastri reacts to big McLaren shift… and verdict over \u2018crazy\u2019 F1 controversy<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Oh my god!\u2019: Last-ditch Piastri stunner as title statement sent in Miami chaos<\/a><\/p>\n

Leclerc survived a big spin and smacked the barriers in his efforts as he dropped places and battled to the finish.<\/p>\n

He was reported to the stewards for leaving the track too many times and for driving his car in an unsafe condition on the final lap.<\/p>\n

He was given a 20-second penalty which relegated him from sixth on track to eighth in the official classification. <\/p>\n

Charles Leclerc had a disastrous end to the race.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n

\u201cI did my best to try and make the corners first of all… But it was probably a lot more difficult for me than it looked to be from the outside,\u201d Leclerc said before the ruling. <\/p>\n

Speaking of the damage to his car, he said: \u201cThe damage was significant. To tell you exactly what was the damage, I\u2019m not so sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty sure there was a puncture, there was probably some suspension damage as well, as I couldn\u2019t really turn to the right anymore. So yeah, I\u2019m very disappointed with myself. It\u2019s all on me and it\u2019s a mistake.<\/p>\n

\u201cI obviously need to look because with these cars, you always have the question mark of how much it deploys and considering it was the last lap, maybe there was a bit more out of that corner as you just need to finish the lap with that amount of energy. But that\u2019s not an excuse in any way. It\u2019s all on me and it\u2019s not acceptable. So I need to look at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Monegasque was also heard questioning his team over team radio earlier about the timing of his pit stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did we stop? When is the rain?\u201d Leclerc said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext time you make a decision please speak with me. I am here as well.\u201d <\/p>\n

His Ferrari teammate, seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, was also disappointed as he came home seventh.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, not a good weekend — P7 in both races,\u201d said Hamilton, referring to Saturday\u2019s sprint.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust stuck in no man\u2019s land.\u201d After suffering damage from first-lap contact with Franco Colapinto\u2019s Alpine, after four-time champion Max Verstappen spun, \u201cthere was nothing I could do,\u201d said Hamilton.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lost a lot of performance from that.\u201d Hamilton added: \u201cReally unfortunate because the team worked so hard. We come away with a few points, but yeah, we move on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Leclerc admitted he threw away a podium finish for Ferrari with a wild penultimate lap as he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[2620,313714,2095,64,63,13275,313711,817,36333,141869,2755,813,816,22496,313712,313608,10115,823,825,2041,2067,313713,25593,36245,36328,14444,78374,313715,22305,85,2614],"class_list":["post-648242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-agence-france-presse","tag-alessandro-zanardi","tag-america","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-extensive-upgrades-package","tag-f1","tag-final-lap","tag-first-lap-contact","tag-florida","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-four-time-champion","tag-incredible-title-truth","tag-italian-wonderkid","tag-kimi-antonelli","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-official-classification","tag-penultimate-lap","tag-pit-stop","tag-podium-finish","tag-question-mark","tag-race-victory","tag-second-to-last-lap","tag-seven-time-champion","tag-sports","tag-united-states-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}