Lewis Hamilton’s Miami Grand Prix was compromised by a first-lap collision with Franco Colapinto at Turn 11, which damaged his car’s floor and a sidepod. Team telemetry confirmed the floor and sidepod damage, and race engineer Carlo Santi estimated a 10–15 point loss of downforce. Hamilton told his team he had “lost the left side,” described himself as “just a passenger,” and later apologized on the radio, saying “Sorry about the damage.” He estimated the incident cost about half a second and said it left him unable to compete for the lead and ruined his race pace.

The incident came during a chaotic opening lap in which Max Verstappen spun at Turn 2 and forced Hamilton wide into Colapinto’s path, with the contact then occurring at Turn 11. Reports differed on which sidepod was hit; some accounts said the left sidepod was damaged, while another reported damage to the right-hand sidepod. The lap-one damage hampered Hamilton’s pace across the weekend despite work to improve the car for qualifying, and he called the weekend “one to forget.” He crossed the line seventh on the road in Sunday’s race and had also been seventh in the Sprint.

Ferrari brought significant upgrades to the SF-26 and Charles Leclerc led early, only to be passed after the safety-car restart. Accounts varied on Leclerc’s final classification: some reports recorded him finishing sixth and scoring eight points, while others said he hit the wall on the final lap and then received a 20-second penalty for leaving the track repeatedly, a penalty that promoted Hamilton to sixth. Hamilton repeatedly complained about a continuing lack of power linked to the internal combustion engine and restricted access to electrical energy, an issue he had raised in Japan five weeks earlier and which he said made on-track battles harder. Several reports framed Hamilton’s result as the consequence of the early contact rather than a true reflection of the team’s pace, and he and the team said they would regroup and aim to extract more performance at the next race.