Verstappen penalised for crossing pit exit but keeps fifth place at F1 Miami GP

Max Verstappen has been handed a five-second penalty for crossing the pitlane exit line at the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix but retains his fifth place due to an even bigger penalty for Charles Leclerc.

Verstappen, who had dropped down the order after spinning at the start, made an early pitstop on lap 6, capitalising on an early safety car that had come out for the separate accidents of Isack Hadjar and Pierre Gasly.

But in doing so, the four-time world champion crossed the white line on pit exit, which was ultimately investigated after the race so stewards could review secondary video footage.

New camera angles confirmed Verstappen had crossed the line, netting him a five-second penalty.

“When the incident occurred, there was limited video evidence to make a clear decision on whether an infringement had occurred,” the stewards explained. “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.”

Verstappen only just nicked fifth off Ferrari’s Leclerc coming out of the final corner but will retain fifth because Leclerc was handed a bigger, 20-second penalty for cutting several corners on the final lap as he suffered car damage on his Ferrari.

Leclerc was demoted to eighth behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton and Alpine driver Franco Colapinto.

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– The Autosport.com Team