Carlos Sainz during the Miami Grand Prix he found himself fighting with Oscar Piastri's McLaren. The Spaniard attempted to overtake him several times to take the position. During the final stages of the race, after the long final straight, at turn 17, the Ferrari driver attempted the final overtaking, but in doing so he hit the Australian. As a result, Piastri had to stop to replace the front wing and slipped to the bottom of the standings. Sainz instead continued the race, finishing in fourth place, immediately behind Charles Leclerc. During the Italian night, the FIA evaluated Sainz's maneuver by giving him a 5-second penalty which changed the finishing order of the Miami race. Not only Sainz was penalized after the match. Two other pilots were in fact found guilty.
Sainz furious at the decision not to penalize Piastri
As we said, Sainz and Piastri didn't just have a face-to-face meeting. In fact, before the contact, on the fortieth lap there was another ambiguous opportunity. Sainz had in fact requested via radio, over and over again, a penalty for Oscar Piastri, who had accompanied him off the track in a close duel. Situation on which the FIA decided not to take action. “It surprises me that Piastri did what Magnussen did, who took 4 penalties – ha ditto Sainz at the end of the Grand Prix. Piastri didn't give me the position back and didn't take any penalties. It was then that I said to myself: "if we want to play like this, then let's do it". The race? I think I could have won: if we had waited one more lap we could have done it, but it's luck or bad luck here. Overall I think we were fast throughout the race and we should look at the positive side."
The penalty for Sainz, who climbs to fifth position
The subsequent contact, therefore, was perhaps also the result of this failure to take action. Sainz didn't want to intentionally hit Piastri, but having lost his rear the contact became inevitable. After calling together the pilot stewards and the team representatives called, it was decided that Sainz was to blame for the accident, but to a less serious extent than the episodes which instead concerned Magnussen. The stewards said Piastri had given "sufficient space" to Sainz.
This resulted in a 5 second penalty and 1 point on the Spaniard's licence, who moved up from fourth to fifth position, giving way to Sergio Perez. Piastri, however, finished the race in 13th place following the accident. Although he had an excellent start to the race at the start, remaining second for several laps. McLaren's pace was decidedly good, and this was demonstrated above all by Lando Norris who took the first victory of his career in Miami, beating Red Bull on the track. Piastri, in addition to not having the updates, was also unlucky in the timing of the release of the Safety. Ferrari now postpones the challenge to Imola where the first updates on the SF-24 will also arrive.
The other penalties
As we said, Sainz's penalty was not the only post-match penalty. In fact, the FIA condemned two other drivers, Magnussen and Stroll. Magnussen had already been given a 10-second penalty for causing a collision with Logan Sargeant during the Miami Grand Prix, whose contact at Turn 3 sent Sargeant into the wall and ended his home race in Florida. During the course of the race, however, it emerged that Magnussen had not served his penalty correctly during the race. The FIA then investigated after the race, giving a further 20 second penalty (converted from a drive-through penalty, as he could not serve it), thus dropping him from P18 to P19 in the official rankings. In addition to Magnussen, another 2 points were deducted from his super license.
Lance Stroll, however, was given a 10 second penalty after the race for going off the track and gaining an advantage. However, the penalty did not lead to a change in the final positions of the GP, as he arrived with a greater gap from the car following him.
Source: F1
