Racing
© Jonathan Borba
The Miami Grand Prix was thrown into chaos on lap 6 when Isack Hadjar and Pierre Gasly crashed out within moments of each other in separate incidents, forcing an early safety car that immediately changed the shape of the race.
Hadjar was the first to go. The Red Bull driver lost control in the technical chicane after touching the inside section and then hit the wall hard enough to end his race on the spot. The impact caused heavy damage, with the steering broken, leaving him unable to continue after what had already been a difficult opening phase.
The second crash was far more dramatic. Gasly had been fighting Liam Lawson wheel-to-wheel near the final corner when the two made contact. The Alpine was launched into a rollover and came to rest upside down after the clash. Gasly was able to climb out on his own, with no apparent injuries, but his race was over immediately. Lawson’s Racing Bulls was also retired as part of the incident sequence.
That back-to-back double blow brought out the safety car on lap 6 and compressed the field just as the order was starting to settle after a messy opening lap. Race officials opened an investigation into the Gasly-Lawson collision to determine responsibility, with the possibility of any sanction carrying over to the next round in Canada if required.
The neutralization mattered straight away for Max Verstappen. The Red Bull driver had already lost ground in the opening corners after a spin triggered when he ran over a wet inside kerb while trying to recover positions. He had dropped back from the front-running fight, but the safety car gave him a cheap pit stop and the chance to switch to hard tires for the remainder of the 57-lap race.
That strategic opening may prove one of the defining consequences of the lap-6 chaos. Rather than making a green-flag stop and losing more time in traffic, Verstappen was able to reset his race while the pack was slowed and bunched together. It turned an already damaged afternoon into one with a possible recovery route.
Up front, Charles Leclerc had emerged as the early leader before the safety car was deployed, with Lando Norris behind him and Kimi Antonelli also in the leading group. The interruption froze that contest before any of the frontrunners had been forced to show their hand on tire life or pace over a longer opening stint.
What had looked like the start of a conventional strategic race instead became a restart race almost immediately. Hadjar’s self-inflicted retirement and Gasly’s violent exit after contact with Lawson did more than remove three cars from contention. They reset the order, handed Verstappen a tactical lifeline, and left the race to be decided from a very different position than the one the field had created in the opening laps.