Carlos Sainz loses fourth place after punishment for Oscar Piastri clash

Carlos Sainz has dropped from fourth to fifth in the final F1 Miami Grand Prix classification after being handed a penalty.

The Ferrari driver has been hit with a five-second time penalty after being found to be “predominantly to blame for the collision” with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.

The pair came to blows at Turn 14 when Sainz attempted to overtake Piastri for fourth place on Lap 39 of Sunday’s race in Miami. Sainz lost control of his car and made contact with Piastri.

“In the overtake attempt, car 55 braked late, missed the apex and in the process lost the rear, with the resulting collision. Although car 81 [Piastri] was trying to turn in to counter the overtaking attempt, car 81 gave sufficient room to car 55,” the stewards explained.

“In the circumstances, we find car 55 to be predominantly to blame for the collision.”

However, the stewards accepted some mitigating circumstances because they considered Sainz’s loss of control to be minimal.

As such, the severity of the penalty was reduced from a 10-second time penalty and two penalty points to a five-second time penalty with one penalty point.

“In this case, we took into account, as mitigating factors, the fact that but for the slight loss of control of the rear by car 55, the collision would likely not have happened and it would have been hard but good racing,” they added.

Sainz’s penalty sees him slip one place to fifth and promotes Red Bull’s Sergio Perez up to fourth.