Charles Leclerc crashed before the start of Formula 1's Miami Grand Prix sprint race, hitting the wall during reconnaissance laps in extremely wet conditions.
Leclerc, with only intermediate tyres on his Ferrari, hit standing water and slid helplessly into one of the walls that line the outside of the circuit.
Charles Leclerc hits the wall!! 😱
— Formula 1 (@F1) May 3, 2025
With rain falling heavily, Leclerc sustains heavy damage on his way to the grid after contact with the wall#F1 #F1Sprint #MiamiGP pic.twitter.com/XGiaxPPuBq
It caused extensive damage to the right hand side of his car and although Leclerc attempted to get back to the pits he had to give up and park the car.
He was due to start sixth with team-mate Lewis Hamilton qualifying seventh.
"It's frustrating but at the end of the day, I can only blame myself for it," said Leclerc.
"Going out with the inters in those conditions was probably not the best choice but on the other hand these things shouldn't happen.
"I felt a bit like a passenger because it's in a straight line and it's not like you are pushing in a straight line, so I was just cruising until I completely lost control of the car because of the aquaplaning and I had no way out of it.
"So yeah very disappointed, it's the way it is. Now I need to move on because there's a qualifying in a few hours, which I hope I'll be able to take part in and if I do then I hope we can recover a difficult beginning of the day."
Shortly after Leclerc's accident, Hamilton complained about Ferrari's tyre choice with the conditions as they were, saying over the radio: "I don't know how you put us out on inters here."
Crash for Leclerc!
— The Race (@wearetherace) May 3, 2025
🗣️ "Complete aquaplaning" he said. pic.twitter.com/dSuUUNt9d7
Race control has noted Leclerc’s car was in an “unsafe condition”.
A revision to the sporting regulations for this year notes that a driver must leave the track as soon as it is safe to do so if their car has “significant and obvious damage” that presents an “immediate risk of endangering the driver or others”.
The incident will be investigated after the sprint.
Based on what the international feed showed of other cars on reconnaissance laps, several cars were already using the full wet tyre although some were on intermediates like the Ferraris.
Rain started to fall during the F1 Academy qualifying session in the build-up to the sprint race and then intensified, leaving track conditions extremely poor.
The sprint race is due to start at 12:00pm local time (17:00pm UK time).
