The FIA has confirmed why the race stewards decided that Charles Leclerc should receive a five-second time penalty during Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix, with his Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton left fuming by the decision.

The incident in question happened after a dramatic start to the race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, with Hamilton starting on pole and Leclerc one row behind him in P3.

By the time the two Ferrari drivers got to turn one, Hamilton had kept his lead, with Leclerc close behind him in P2. Heading into turn four, Leclerc tried to make his move once again, going around the outside, but ultimately running off the track and therefore cutting the corner at turn five.

Leclerc gained first place as a result of this, and while Hamilton also went off track after turn four, he made it back between the white lines for turn five rather than cutting the corner and yielded second position to Max Verstappen.

Immediately, Hamilton was not happy, fuming over the radio: “Pushed out by my own team-mate.” There were further radio messages from Hamilton as the incident was investigated by the race stewards, and eventually, Leclerc was handed a five-second penalty. Hamilton’s unhappiness continued.

“The stewards are basically handing Charles this win. We agreed in the drivers’ briefing,” a frustrated Hamilton told his team, arguing that the penalty was not enough given Leclerc had gained the advantage of running out front in clean air.

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FIA explain stewards’ Charles Leclerc penalty

The FIA race stewards later explained why they had opted for a five-second penalty for Leclerc on this occasion, and not a 10-second time penalty, which is the usual punishment in such a scenario.

“The Stewards have determined that both cars entered turn 4 with excessive speed and therefore neither would have been able to make the corner on track, as demonstrated by the fact that car 44 [Hamilton], which was on the inside, had to go off track to make the corner,” the FIA confirmed.

“Car 16 [Leclerc] was therefore not entitled to claim the corner due to the excessive entry speed. The driver then completed an overtake whilst off track and accordingly this warrants a penalty.

“The baseline penalty guideline is 10 seconds; however, in mitigation is the fact that car 44 was also off track on the inside of car 16, and this occurred early in the first lap.”

Hamilton went on to finish the race in P2, behind Verstappen, who got ahead of him in the early stages after that incident with Leclerc.

His team-mate, meanwhile, came home in P4 after Kimi Antonelli overtook him to claim the final podium spot on the day he was crowned F1 world champion.

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Final practice from the 2026 Mexican Grand Prix is now in the books, with reigning world champion Lando Norris topping the timesheets ahead of qualifying later this afternoon.

This might be the last weekend he can call himself that, of course, and the man who looks set to take that crown off him in Mexico City, Kimi Antonelli, was P2 in FP3, with just 0.001 seconds separating their lap times.

After topping both FP1 and FP2 on Friday, Ferrari star Charles Leclerc was only good enough for P3 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, with Oscar Piastri behind him in fourth. Max Verstappen, meanwhile, finished fifth in FP3 in his Red Bull, followed by Lewis Hamilton, whose difficult weekend continues after he was forced to retire in FP2.

George Russell, as has so often been the case this season, was off the pace of his team-mate Antonelli down in P7, with Isack Hadjar, Liam Lawson, and Arvid Lindblad rounding out the top 10 in that order.

Further down the grid, if you notice something looks off with the Haas drivers, you’d be correct. Esteban Ocon has been replaced mid-weekend in Mexico City, with Ryo Hirakawa taking his place for the rest of the weekend.

Haas have not given a reason for this, but have confirmed that Ocon is not suffering from illness.

With that said, let’s take a look at the full results below!

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F1 Mexican Grand Prix FP3 times

Here are the full results from Saturday afternoon’s FP3 session at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Is there F1 today?

Qualifying is next up later today, Saturday, October 31, at 15:00 local time and 21:00 GMT. To read the complete breakdown of the times and how to watch in select locations, click here.

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F1 could be set for a huge shakeup ahead of the 2029 season, with the return of a legendary manufacturer.

The tyre company Bridgestone are plotting an F1 comeback having left the sport after the 2010 season following 14 consecutive seasons.

F1 offer exclusivity on tyres in the sport which is currently held by Pirelli, who have been providing the tyres to all the F1 team’s cars since the 2011 season.

Back in July, F1 activated a one-year extension to their contract with the Italian brand which will take them to the end of the 2028 season.

The contract for F1 is then offered through a tender process, where F1’s governing body the FIA selects a winner before finalising the deal with the sport.

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Bridgestone have ‘strong’ bid to challenge Pirelli

According to RacingNews365, Bridgestone is preparing to return to F1 with a technological, business and commercial package that succeeds its previously strong bid in 2023, where they beaten by Pirelli to the contract – and report they have a ‘strong chance’ of winning.

Hiroshi Imai, who left McLaren after 15 years in 2024, returned Bridgestone where he worked between 1990 and 2008 in 2025 and is leading the mission to get back into F1, and is a member of the Bridgestone delegates that reportedly were at recent races including the US Grand Prix.

Bridgestone came back to the sport in 1997 with its Potenza tyre alongside previous sole supplier Goodyear and despite having the slower slick tyre in its first year, rapidly improved to force Goodyear out by the end of 1998.

The next two years saw Bridgestone act as sole supplier before Michelin entered F1 in 2001 and started the era’s famous tyre war.

This erupted at the 2005 US Grand Prix, when the Michelin tyres were found to not be safe to tackle the track’s diamond cut tarmac on a steep bank, resulting in just the six Bridgestone runners, including Ferrari and race winner Michael Schumacher to compete.

Michelin then left the sport at the end of 2006 and F1 has intentionally kept just one tyre supplier in the sport ever since, with Bridgestone’s 2010 exit leaving them with 175 wins from 244 races after their 1976 debut.

Pirelli’s excellent F1 record

Pirelli’s exclusive deal is a record for F1, indicating that F1 have been extremely happy with their 16 seasons in the sport.

While their work on producing different compounds with various degrees of degradation to keep the pit-stop strategies interesting, there has been criticism of the Pirelli’s full wet tyre.

It is though to be far inferior to even the intermediate tyre, which is best suited to a slightly wet or even drying track and as a result has rarely been seen on an F1 track under green flag racing.

This has led to wet races being more likely to be run under safety car conditions or even red flagged, although this is in conjunction with F1 cars providing even more spray, making visibility for drivers even harder to contend with.

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